Del Alan Shilkret

My life would have taken a different path had I not had the excellent academic preparation and opportunities at A.B. Davis. After four years at Trinity College followed by a brief job in merchandising at a department store in Philadelphia, I enlisted in the army and ended my military days with a year in Vietnam. While in Saigon, I decide that a career as an administrator in education was what I wanted and, as a result, wound up at Teacher’s College, Columbia University working toward my masters. I completed the program and married a classmate. We moved to Hartford and I returned to Trinity College for eight years during the revolution of the late 60’s and early 70’s as the Director of the Campus Center and then as Dean of Student Services. It is not every day that you require that the take-over of the campus center for the anti=war movement be scheduled on the master calendar and it happens! Our daughter was born on the day that the Trinity College trustees voted to enroll women students. Life, however, was becoming too predictable and confining in the early 70’s at the college level. It was time to move on. At Millbrook School, a private high school in New York State, I found not only a beautiful environment in which to work but also a place to spread my wings and try new things thanks to the support of the headmasters. I became the Director of Finance and Operations. It was my involvement with the students that I enjoyed most, both as advisor to about 66 students over the years and as community service advisor to our school store and to the school bank. My management style and personality resonated with colleagues and students and I was able to help Millbrook increase in size and stature during my 32 years there, something in which I take great pride. Now that I am retired, I have the time to do more volunteer work, pursue my interests in photography and travel, and spend time with my family. All in all, a great life.