Page 9 - Priorities #25 2004-January

Revitalizing The Alumni Association Is
‘All About Connections’
Alumni Profile
How do you get people charged up about their high school years after they’ve graduated? That’s what occupies Dave Arnold’s mind these days. A 1984 graduate of Woodside Priory, Arnold is organizing the school’s first alumni association in its 46 years.
As co-chairs of the Alumni Council, Arnold and Rob Hammond (class of 1988) have done research on the Internet to build up a database of alumni names. They are brainstorming methods of getting bygone graduates back in touch with their old school. They even have met with representatives of St. Francis High School in Mountain View and other local schools to glean tips for attracting alumni.
It’s all part of finding the key to bringing people back to the community that Arnold continues to find enriching.
“There’s a tremendous amount of history that I personally have and my family has with the school,” Arnold says, sitting at his desk at the Gorilla Search Group in Los Gatos. Arnold co-founded the executive placement company.
Arnold’s history with Woodside Priory began before he was born, with the second graduating class. Arnold is the youngest of nine children. In the early 1960s, his father, an electrical engineer and devout Catholic, thought he had a means to keep education costs down. He approached the Priory’s founding monks with a barter arrangement: He would teach algebra in exchange for tuition for his sons.
“Theywereecstatic,”Arnoldsays.Fourofthefive Arnold boys attended Woodside Priory under the unique agreement. (Arnold’s parents tried to convince the monks to go coeducational, so his sisters could attend, “but they would have no part of it.”)
“I think the Priory does a very good job of teaching students to be problem solvers,” says Arnold, who majored in economics at Loyola- Marymount University in Los Angeles. The teachers “really teach you to think.”
At college, “my first two years were review. It
was very easy.” Arnold graduated with a degree
in economics, taking enough accounting courses to land positions in finance at Apple Computer and Sun Microsystems, where he met his wife, Donna.
He left finance when he realized he didn’t have a passion for accounting and shifted his career to employment recruitment. He was a vice president with Robert Half International when he left to co- found the Gorilla Search Group.
Throughout this time, Arnold has been active with the Priory. He is a member of the Board of Trustees, the Campaign Leadership Team and the Golf Committee. And, in a moment of serendipity, he was able to connect his work life with his Priory life. He got a call asking if he knew of a good candidate to serve as dean of academics and put his “dear friend” Jennifer Martin in touch with the school.
Lately, Arnold has been busy organizing his graduating class’ 20th reunion, which will take place at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Of the 30 students
in the class, Arnold is expecting at least 20 alumni, including the six international students, to attend. He’d like to see other classes approaching their reunions with as much enthusiasm.
Arnold is hoping to have each class name a class agent responsible for keeping members in touch with each other. He’d like alumni to speak at Chapel at least twice a year. He’d like the alumni to reach out to current and future Priory students, establishing
a Priory network to help people make college and career decisions. And he hopes to establish regular alumni events to attract as many of the 1,100 people who have graduated from the Priory as possible.
ToArnold,thepointofitallisthefuture. “It’s really about connections.” Priory alumni have traditionally been generous in their gifts to the school. But Arnold sees an alumni association as much more than development. It would mean student mentoring, alumni business referrals and, mostly, continuing
the sense of community students enjoyed before graduation.
“You can’t just ask for money,” Arnold says. “You’ve got to do something else.”“We have already come a long way,” he says. “The future looks very bright.”
—G. Young
Dave Arnold, Class of 1984
Lives in Los Gatos
Wife: Donna
Favorite activities: Gourmet cooking, wine collecting, golfing
Professional field: Financial Executive placementRecruitment
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