Tote My Wife . . . Please!

"I'm interested in sports off the beaten path," says John Lund, AS'99.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is an understatement. That's because Lund is a U.S. wife-carrying champion. Yes, wife carrying. And, yes, it's a real sport, one inspired by the exploits of a nineteenth-century Finnish robber who used to goad men into carrying off spouses from neighboring villages.

Luckily, modern wife carrying tests strength and speed, not stealing. Competitors hoist onto their backs a "wife"—she doesn't have to be a true spouse; girlfriends, friends, or sisters are also legit—then dash through a 278-yard obstacle course. "It's kind of like a steeplechase," says Lund. "There are hurdles, a water trench, sawdust."

Partners may be carried any number of ways, including piggyback or fireman-style. But, as with most things, a good fit is key. Lund explains: "She has to be able to form her body to mine—a tight connection—so she's not bouncing around. And be strong and flexible."

When Lund entered the American wife-carrying nationals at Sunday River, in Bethel, Maine, in 2001 and 2004, he asked athletic coworkers to compete with him. In the latter race, he came in second to a Canadian, allowing him to claim the American title.

Last year, he competed in Finland. In fact, he now makes his home near Sonkaj?rvi, Finland, home to the annual wife-carrying world championships. The Wenham, Massachusetts, native, who earned an MBA from the Rochester Institute of Technology, is working as an international sales and marketing manager for Visy, a developer of area- and access-control systems for border crossings and ports.

Lund first stumbled onto wife carrying during a co-op in the Czech Republic. His running and rowing experience—he rowed crew at Northeastern—prepared him to be a strong competitor. (He's still rowing today, as a member of a club crew that in June clinched Finland's open eight national championships.)

Wife carrying can be a messy business, though. Some race days, it rains. If you drop your wife, you receive a fifteen-second penalty. It helps if your wife is petite. Her wit is just as important, too—having fun, says Lund, "is in the rules."

And in the winning. Victors are often awarded their wife's weight in beer.

—Katy Kramer, MA'00

  Photo courtesy Jay Bowen

Animal Instincts

At college, Jay Bowen, LA'73, learned to look at the big issues. In 1969—his freshman year—Northeastern students were galvanized by protests over the Vietnam War. "We were confused and unsettled," says Bowen.

He decided to major in political science. It was a fortuitous choice. "The poly-sci professors helped us get through a very difficult period," Bowen remembers. "We had long conversations with them. They invested a lot of time in the wee hours of the night and, just by being there, provided moral support."

This lesson in altruism and discourse likely helped groom Bowen for his December 2005 appointment as president of the Animal Rescue League of Boston (ARLB).

After graduating from Northeastern, Bowen earned a master's in educational administration from Boston University in 1977, then worked in academic administration at Endicott College. Stints as associate dean at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine and vice president for resource development at Emerson College followed.

In 1994, Bowen made a leap over to the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, joining the organization as its vice president for development and external affairs. It was a natural move for him. This Belmont, Massachusetts, native—who currently shares his digs with a much-loved cat, Fresco—says he grew up with a series of mixed-breed dogs, all from shelters, in a family of five kids "raised to look at how we can make the world a better place. My father was committed to shelter animals. He taught us by example."

Now Bowen is leading the ARLB, which finds homes for abused and neglected animals, and rescues creatures in emergencies. During last spring's flooding in the Northeast, for instance, a farmer called the ARLB to ask them to help save her whole menagerie: horses, dogs, cats, and a bird.

Society's treatment of animals is really a canary in a coal mine, says Bowen. "The Rescue League is an important link to civilization. If you teach children to be kind to animals, you'll increase the likelihood they'll be kind to humans."

—Katy Kramer, MA'00

 Photo courtesy Gretchen Smelter

"I Do" Design

"We don't photograph something just because it's beautiful," says Gretchen Smelter, AS'93, the design director of Brides magazine.

Sure, this glossy periodical features women draped in tulle, silk shantung, and organza. But, Smelter says, "we also have a strong editorial mission," which includes relaying useful information about bridal etiquette and beauty, for instance. And, issue after issue, Smelter pursues a specific design goal that's much harder than it sounds: "making a woman in a white dress look visually interesting."

Small wonder Brides is the big-day bible that graces the nightstands of most brides-to-be. "We're the go-to guide," Smelter acknowledges.

Over the course of her career, Smelter has influenced design at many high-profile publications, catching a bouquet of accolades for her creativity. She won a 2005 Society of Publication Designers (SPD) award for her overall redesign of Brides, a reprise of the honor she won three years earlier for her redesign of Scientific American. In 2003, she was nominated for an SPD national magazine general-excellence award for her work on Real Simple. As the icing on the cake, the Bristol, Connecticut, native was recently elected to the fifteen-person SPD board of directors.

She's not married to a specific look. Quite the opposite—each magazine is designed according to its own needs. Plus, she says, "it's fun to see your vision evolve every couple of months."

Smelter stepped into her line of work in right-place, right-time style. "I was flying down to Florida on spring break to visit my grandparents," she says, "and the man next to me was reading a book on typography." Turns out he was Ronn Campisi, who owned his own graphic-design firm on Boston's Newbury Street.

She freelanced for Campisi while she was still a student majoring in visual arts, then became his associate art director. Kudos followed when she joined the Fast Company magazine launch team in 1998. After she landed in New York City in 1999, Smelter served as art director for SmartMoney and senior art director for Martha Stewart Living.

Today, though, those gigs seem a little like a dress rehearsal. "This," says Smelter, "has always been my goal, to be a design director at a fashion magazine. And now I am, and I love it."

Call it a match made in heaven.

—Katy Kramer, MA'00