Alumni profile
Dick Hirsh ’65: Braving Jungles, Deserts and Mountains to Combat Cancer
Did Dick Hirsh’s experience as a Miami Alpha Delt prepare him for humanitarian service in remote areas of Honduras, Vietnam, the West Bank and beyond?
“I think that at its best, the Fraternity gave us great opportunities. It taught us that with opportunity comes a great obligation, to give back. As brothers, I think we were constantly in a position of learning and teaching others.”
If fraternity brother Hirsh developed a habit of “learning and teaching” as a way of giving back, then accomplished radiologist Hirsh continued that habit when he founded the non-profit Radiology Mammography International in 1996. Every year since then, Hirsh and the RMI volunteers he recruits have made two or three multi-week trips to distant underserved communities in India, Armenia, Nicaragua, Bulgaria and other countries. There, they teach fellow caregivers in remote areas how to effectively screen and diagnose breast cancers, one of the leading causes of death among women in developing countries.
Hirsh’s passion for the work is clear. “Breast cancer is apolitical and nonpartisan. It recognizes no cultural, ethnic or religious boundaries. It respects nothing and nobody. It’s an equal opportunity disease,” he says.
For his humanitarian globetrotting – from Nepal to Nicaragua, Cuba to Kosovo – Hirsh was honored with the coveted Samuel Eells Award at this summer’s Alpha Delta Phi International Convention, hosted in Oxford by the Miami Chapter. In 2008, his service earned him the Miami University’s Robert Hamilton Bishop Medal (named after the man who was the University’s first president – “and first Alpha Delt,” Hirsh proudly points out).
Hirsh says the awards are wonderful and humbling, but the real payoff comes in the personal fulfillment that comes from making a difference. Not surprisingly, he tells some remarkable stories about RMI’s work:
- In Bluefields, Nicaragua, RMI’s volunteers screened dozens of Miskito Indian women who could only reach them after a six hour voyage by open boat. When the team found a suspicious lump in the breast of one woman and asked her to come back a week later when she could be biopsied, she said she would have to forego treatment because she didn’t have the boat fare. Thinking quickly, and needing to protect the woman’s dignity, Hirsh invented “RMI’s special travel fund” that granted her the needed $12 – secretly, from his own pocket.
- At the National Cancer Institute in Hanoi, Vietnam, the head of radiology defended the effectiveness of his dated mammography machine, but audibly gasped when Hirsh showed him the golf ball-sized tumor revealed by the new, donated mammography equipment and which his old machine had completely missed. “Suddenly, he was shaken to think of the many women he had sent home with undetected cancers and false confidence,” says Hirsh. “If we could have accomplished nothing more than to get him to retire that old machine, the mission would have been a success. Knowing the good we had done was very fulfilling for us.”
Hirsh encourages Alpha Delts to seek similarly fulfilling experiences. In his speech at the International Convention’s formal banquet, he congratulated alumni delegates for their continued involvement in the Fraternity, which showed they understood the importance of giving back and “paying it forward.” He urged undergrads to see that Eells’ vision to “develop the whole man…moral, social and intellectual” is as vital and important now as it was 178 years ago. And he quoted another Alpha Delt he admires, famed computer industry pioneer David Packard S’34, when he said, “’We each realize we have opportunities to execute a purpose – to better ourselves. Afterward, we discover obligations to self, to friends, to society and to community – whether local or global.’”
Hirsh’s sense of obligation includes the Fraternity that provided him an important formative experience; today, he is a member of the Miami Chapter’s Loyalty Society. Whether as a donor to the Fraternity or as a caregiver to indigenous people around the world, Hirsh has discovered that being generous has its own rewards. “When a gift is given from the heart, it is the donor who is the true recipient,” he said.
Dick Hirsh’s 37 years as a diagnostic radiologist will come to an end on December 31, when he officially retires from his group practice in Akron. He and his wife Marcia ’66 plan to vacation in Key West for two months -- then continue his medical missions and teaching with RMI. He also plans to keep loyally attending Alumni Reunion Weekends at Miami with his long-time friends and Alpha Delt classmates Tom Lillich ’65, Michael Kolchin ’65, and Donald Wright ’65.
Learn more about Dick Hirsh and RMI online at http://www.radiologymammography.org
Alumni profile
LIVING LARGE, FOR FUN AND PROFIT: JACK KOSIN ‘98
Spreading
Alpha Delt-style porch parties across America
– and making money doing it
Jack Kosin ’98 probably isn’t the first Alpha Delt to wonder if he could turn “hanging out” into a career. But he’s probably the only one who has.
The outdoor furniture and accessory business that Kosin founded in 2008 bears the name “Bell Tower Outdoor Living Company.” It’s named after the balconied room at 22 South Campus where he (and generations of fellow Alpha Delts before and since) first learned the almost mystical relationship-building power of…outdoor leisure.
“I remember the moment when the idea hit me,” explains Kosin, who entered Miami as a mass communications major in 1994. “One sunny, warm day, a group of brothers and friends was hanging out on the porch of the house behind the chapter house. I wanted to watch the sun go down, but the porch swing was at the wrong angle. I thought someone should invent a swing system that could adjust to follow the sun.”
Kosin later turned his bright sunset idea into a business plan for a class assignment, proposing a company that would help customers “master the art of outdoor relaxation and comfort.” Ten years later, those same words found their way into the official mission statement of Kosin’s new company.
Before that fateful porch party, Kosin had already become an accomplished outdoor leisure artiste – while relaxing in the Belltower with roommate Sean Cook ‘98. “Before I came to Miami, I had played a lot of team sports. I was really active, just on-the-go all the time. But when I joined the fraternity, I discovered how much I could enjoy just sitting down and talking with my brothers. We really connected, by slowing down and just relaxing together. I made a business out of trying to sell that Belltower experience to others.”
Getting up “the guts” to start Bell Tower took Kosin a while. After graduation, Kosin worked in sales in Chicago for several years. Then he and wife Ashleigh (another Miamian) moved to Richland, Michigan, where they took the plunge and opened Bell Tower in 2008.
It would have taken guts to open any business that year, “but the recession turned out to be a blessing for us,” said Kosin. “The big, overleveraged outdoor retail companies were folding or getting bought out, so being small and new and lean was an advantage.” Amid economic chaos, furniture suppliers were suddenly desperate for retailers, so Kosin was able to grow business relationships that would have been impossible to build in better times.
“Another thing that helped us: in a down economy, people were staying close to home for entertainment, and they were improving their homes rather than buying new houses,” he said.
The plucky new company racked up well over $250,000 in national sales its first year, online and through its Richland store – and has since moved to a larger location. Merchandise includes a wide range of furniture, playsets and outdoor accessories, all carefully selected by Kosin to truly connect people through shared outdoor fun. “When the economy recovers, we’ll be in a position to take advantage,” said Kosin. (Link to Bell Tower’s web site here).
Alpha Delta Phi was obviously very influential for Kosin, and still is. He stays close with many of his ’98 classmates, including Andy Blackburn, Jay Shackelford, Blake Hines, Ryan Yakos, and Jonathan Kidder – “basically, all the same guys I hung out with in the Belltower,” said Kosin. “You know, you’ll meet hundreds and hundreds of people in life, but I know those guys on a whole different level because of the experiences we went through together.”
Kosin remains supportive of the fraternity. He donates as a member of the chapter’s alumni Loyalty Society. He also has a dream to help raise money for the fraternity and other good causes through tournaments of highly popular outdoor games such as “bags” or “corn hole,” for which his company will sponsor the equipment.
Kosin is philanthropic, so it’s no surprise his company’s mission goes beyond simply making money. In today’s video-game-and-Facebook society, Kosin laments the loss of “stories that people remember for many, many years, stories involving sunsets, sitting around fires, swimming in the water, playing games or just laying in the sun. People don’t connect this way often enough anymore. We’re trying to help people rediscover those values.”
“What I’m passing along is just what I learned with my buddies at Miami. I’m sure I’ll never forget those guys, because here I am doing this.”
How did your fraternity experience influence your career choice and/or degree of success? Drop us a line to tell us your story, and we may profile you in an upcoming Star & Crescent.