Easy Being Green
Sajed Kamal, BA’70, MEd’71, has always been ahead of the ecology curve.
His award-winning vision for sustainable development long predates the current preoccupation with up-and-down gas prices. He’s argued for alternative energy since the Vietnam era, when most people couldn’t tell a solar panel from a solar plexus.
Back then, “we were sitting around at the student center, informally protesting the war,” recalls Kamal. “One member of the group was a student from Iraq and another was from Colombia. They both said the oil fields in their countries were being fenced off. We wondered: Is the Vietnam War really ending or [is the conflict] shifting to oil fields?”
So Kamal organized a forum, “The Middle East: The Next Vietnam?” And his lifetime exploration began.
He went on to earn a doctorate in humanistic studies from Boston University. For the past thirteen years, he’s been an adjunct lecturer in the Sustainable International Development program at Brandeis. In 1999, he cofounded Solar Boston, followed by Solar Fenway in 2002, organizations that promote alternative-energy solutions. He’s established pilot renewable-energy programs in the United States, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Armenia, and El Salvador.
In 2007, he earned the Community Leadership and Climate Protection Award, one of Boston’s new Green Awards. In May, he received the Lifetime Achievement Environmental Merit Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
He also practices what he preaches. The Fenway condominium he shares with his wife Rosemary (Buscemi), AS’72, boasts a photovoltaic (solar-power) system. It’s run many of their appliances since 1986.
Kamal seems to derive energy from his family and his roots. He grew up with four siblings in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). His mother, Sufia Kamal, was a world-renowned Bangladeshi poet, social activist, and feminist. His father, Kamaluddin Ahmed, was a writer who also taught college and served in the government.
In the early 1960s, the progressive family hosted a Peace Corps volunteer from Long Island, a decision that helped inspire Kamal’s ambitions. “I, too, had a sense of adventure,” he says. “So I thought, I’ll go to the United States.” He enrolled at the Loomis Institute, a college-prep school in Windsor, Connecticut, where he first learned about Northeastern.
At Northeastern, an undergraduate co-op at the United Nations confirmed Kamal’s belief in the power of participatory democracy. “There is more than one way to look at a problem, but we have to solve it together,” he says.
Today’s imperative? His answer is clear: “Finding renewable energy solutions to fight global warming, prevent energy wars, and transition to a sustainable future.”
— Katy Kramer, MA’00
Mighty Ducks
What quacks, weighs 7.5 tons, goes forty miles per hour, cruises on land and water, and laughs?
If you said a Just Ducky Tours boat, you’d be right. From April to October, seven days a week, twenty excursions a day, Michael Cohen, AS’92, and his Just Ducky employees are captains, historians, and raconteurs as they ferry tourists in Pittsburgh around the city’s streets and waterways. The adults enjoy the jokes. The children quack. Passersby quack back.
During World War II, 21,200 amphibious DUKW boats were built by General Motors in Pontiac, Michigan, to transport soldiers on land and water. Only several hundred of them remain. Many of them are currently being used for city tours.
Early on, Cohen had entrepreneurial aspirations. “I wanted to go into business for myself before I had dependents,” the Brockton, Massachusetts, native says. The wheels really started spinning in 1992 when he took a Montreal duck-boat tour with his girlfriend Tricia (now his wife): “I’d never seen anything like it, though I thought the tour could have had more zip.”
Three years later, while working at Boston’s Pioneer Mutual Funds, Cohen lured best friend Christopher D’Addario into becoming a business partner, then found two duck boats for sale in Chelsea. Friends and family were supportive, including Cohen’s dad, Richard, E’65, and sibling David, SET’97. But not everyone thought the venture would go swimmingly. Cohen says, “I remember telling people what I was going to do and having them say, ‘Best of luck on that one.’”
He bought the boats, stored them at a Brockton used-car dealership, and started looking for a venue. Pittsburgh town officials seemed the most enthusiastic. In spring 1997, the first DUKW was hauled down on a flatbed truck and unloaded by the old Three Rivers Stadium.
By the time the boat was water tested in July 1997, the local media was buzzing, and fun seekers were ready to climb onboard. Today, Cohen—who drives, narrates, and does DUKW maintenance—has five boats, five part-time drivers, and a total full- and part-time staff of seventeen.
Did he ever envision leading this gaggle? “Absolutely not,” he says. “Never in a million years did I think I’d be driving a duck boat. It’s challenging, it’s tiring, but it’s a labor of love.”
— Katy Kramer, MA’00
Designing Woman
“It’s a puzzle that needs to be solved every single day,” says Ardistia Dwiasri, E’00, ME’02, speaking of her work as a fashion designer.
Dwiasri is the creative force behind Ardistia Design Works, an eponymous women’s-wear line that’s been showcased in such publications as the New York Times Magazine and Vogue Japan. “It’s finding the right fabric, the right sample makers, price, delivery time,” the young designer explains. “The puzzle needs to be completed and integrated.”
There’s engineering know-how behind her flirty yet functional styles. Dwiasri earned a bachelor’s in industrial engineering and a master’s in engineering management at Northeastern, along with a degree in fashion design from Parsons New School for Design.
In high school in Jakarta, Indonesia, Dwiasri believed her strengths were in math and science. Art was more of a sideline activity. But it fascinated her. “Since I was a kid, I loved to draw,” she says. “Art and fashion attracted me. I bought a sketchbook every week and filled it.”
After graduating from Northeastern, Dwiasri moved to New York City, where she interned in the design department at Diane von Furstenberg. Later, she freelanced in product development at the Gap and then in Ann Taylor’s color department.
In December 2004, Dwiasri left a full-time technical-design job at Tommy Hilfiger. The following year, she launched her business. Accolades followed.
The ABC soap All My Children selected items from her fall 2007 collection for its wardrobe. High-end specialty stores began selling her wares. Also in fall 2007, she won top honors in the Bioré Uncover/Discover contest, aimed at unearthing talent in fashion, film, music, and the visual arts.
Last summer was spent preparing for the all-important fall fashion shows in Paris and Los Angeles.
Dwiasri’s complementary skills benefit her collection. “Fashion is not just about fashion and design,” she says. “It has a lot of technical aspects to it. Manufacturers don’t care about the nice drawings. You have to translate all the designs into more accurate forms.
“You have to think about numbers, measurement, and construction.”
— Katy Kramer, MA’00