Spreadsheet One
*School Backs Interns in Nonprofits
*GSB Loses Long-Time Adviser
*Guilt is a Sunk Cost
*Accessing the Global Workplace
*Prom Night Redux

People:
Tom Tusher, MBA '65

Photograph by Scott Tusher

TOM TUSHER FELT A LUMP in his chest, but it didn’t seem to be growing, it didn’t hurt, and he didn’t feel tired. When his specialist told him seven years ago that “men don’t get breast cancer,” Tusher opted not to worry. He was more concerned about what to do after retiring as president and COO of Levi Strauss. “The corporate world took 200 percent of my time,” Tusher, MBA ’65, says. “I didn’t have time to fish and read books. For me, retirement wasn’t going to be something where I was going to go and vegetate. I was going to do things I hadn’t done before.”

Twenty years before, Tusher had bought 55 acres outside of Queenstown, New Zealand, that were so difficult to reach no local wanted the parcel. As retirement neared, his plan for a modest fishing cabin grew into a house. The house would require a caretaker. If there was to be a caretaker, then why not have a bed-and-breakfast inn? But with a B&B, so many friends might come to visit that a lodge seemed like an even better idea. “I’ve always enjoyed design and architecture,” Tusher says.

The end result is Blanket Bay, a 60,000-acre luxury destination with a nine-room lodge plus two chalets (and the Tushers’ two-building home) that has garnered rave reviews from the travel industry.

Last September, six years after Tusher decided to dismiss the lump in his chest, his new doctor said, “I don’t like the looks of that.” A needle biopsy report came back malignant. Within a week the lump and five lymph nodes were out. The subsequent chemotherapy was “very ugly.”

Tusher says his bout with cancer hasn’t radically altered his view of life. It’s the perspective from Blanket Bay that has— the crystal-clear water, the snow-covered mountains, the chance for his family and guests to go hiking, horseback riding, or heli-skiing from their front doors.

“We saw the chance to do something that would please other people as well as create a special place in a special part of the world. Our main purpose was not to create a profit but to create a place that we would enjoy and others would enjoy. A lot of people come back after a day out with tears in their eyes,” Tusher says. “It’s a magical spot.”

—Robert L. Strauss, MA/MBA ’84