License to Drive

A week after she was sworn in as the Massachusetts registrar of motor vehicles, Anne Collins, L'88, took a special pen and wrote her name in her best cursive. Her signature needed to be legible; it will be affixed to nearly a million Bay State drivers' licenses this year.

Since November, Collins has headed up the state's sprawling Registry of Motor Vehicles, with 800 employees serving 14.6 million drivers at thirty-seven branches, collecting $1.1 billion in annual revenues. The registry does much more than issue drivers' licenses. It sanctions drivers who receive speeding tickets. Oversees vehicle inspections. Suspends the licenses of parents who don't pay child support or convicted sex offenders who don't register their whereabouts.

Already, under Collins's leadership, the registry has supervised the implementation of Melanie's Law—which stiffens the penalties for operating under the influence—installing breathalyzers on the ignition systems of cars belonging to convicted drunk drivers, for instance.

Collins's appointment by Governor Mitt Romney caps a career in Massachusetts state government that began after her graduation from Northeastern. She has served as director of the Division of Professional Licensure, and chief deputy director and general counsel to the Division of Registration. In both positions, she eliminated huge case backlogs and helped streamline procedures. She hopes to do the same in her new post.

"Government sets up the rules of society, and I like to make them work," says the Arlington, Massachusetts, resident, whose parents, William, E'56, and Louise Collins, LA'56, plan to attend their fiftieth reunion in May. "If government systems work better, then people remain invested in the idea of community."

— David McKay Wilson, LA'78

  Photo courtesy Todd Marcus

Cape Cod Cheer

One frosty evening last January, Todd Marcus, E'91, was—like his beer—moving fast. He was about to open a brand-new 3,000-sq.-ft. brewery in Hyannis, Massachusetts. And folks were still queuing at the old brewery to refill their dark 64-oz. take-home "growlers" and get their suds for about half price.

Marcus, who majored in electrical engineering with a minor in economics, founded Cape Cod Beer in 2004. But ale wasn't exactly what this Ashland native had in mind after graduation, even though, he says, "home brewing beer in my kitchen had always been a hobby of mine."

Instead, Marcus worked in the music and consumer-electronics industries, including at several startups. The beer epiphany came in 1995. He had tagged along with a friend to a "brewers only" dinner at Redbones restaurant, in Somerville. Afterward, he announced, "Hey, you know what? This is what I want to do when I grow up." He quit his job.

Stints with several breweries from Maine to Pennsylvania followed, then "four to five years of gathering intelligence," he says. With the birth of their first son, he and his wife headed back to New England, took over a Cape Cod microbrewery, and began to fiddle with new recipes.

In 2004, Marcus produced Cape Cod Red. A coterie of discerning beer drinkers, schooled through the rapidly growing market of home brewing, soon gathered for it and the label's India Pale Ale.

Cape Cod Beer's old brewery was attached to a restaurant, which was then the only place the beer could be bought. The new facility has more fermentation tanks, a larger brew house, and a retail center for selling beer and beer-making supplies, allowing Marcus to produce, package, and distribute to a widening circle of fans.

Currently, he's the only microbrewmaster working on the Cape.

As he said in a recent cover story in Edible Cape Cod, "I've found my people."

— Katy Kramer, MA'00

 Photo courtesy Julie Cordeiro/Boston Red Sox

New Fenway Wrap Artists

"We're both baseball junkies," says Red Sox head trainer Paul Lessard, BHD'86, talking about assistant athletic trainer Mike Reinold, BHS'00. "So we hit it off right away."

Hired by Boston last November, this brace of Huskies are combining their considerable enthusiasms and health-care know-how to help Red Sox players hit, run, field, and throw without pain or injury.

Lessard has been an athletic trainer for twenty years, working early in his career with (gasp) the New York Yankees' Class A affiliate in Fort Lauderdale. He went on to jobs with Boston University, Holy Cross, the Atlanta Falcons, and, most recently, the Arizona Diamondbacks, with whom he spent eight seasons as head trainer, including their World Series year.

"The majority of the challenge is prevention," says Lessard, who, with the precision of an anatomy and physiology textbook, ticks off the distinct shoulder problems faced by starting pitchers, middle relievers, and closers. "And we help players come back from injuries. It's rewarding.

I feel like a proud papa when the boys are back on the field."

Reinold, a physical therapist with a strong rehab background, works primarily with the BoSox pitchers. He holds a doctorate from Massachusetts General Hospital's Institute of Health Professions and served for six years at the American Sports Medicine Institute, in Birmingham, Alabama, where he held a co-op in 1998. Says the Winthrop, Massachusetts, native, who credits his co-op coordinators with helping him structure a "nonstandard" placement, "I got to work with elite-status athletes."

The two alums met for the first time last fall. "Paul brings a lot of experience to the table," said Reinold. "I think I bring cutting-edge science into how we treat these guys. We complement each other."

And compliment the Fenway faithful. "There's no better city for baseball than Boston," says Lessard, who, not surprisingly, has traveled to games in every U.S. ballpark. "They come before the first pitch, and they don't leave until the game is over. The passion of the fans is second to none."

— Katy Kramer, MA'00