I’ve talked about the incredible Stanford alumni roster before, but I had occasion recently to make a postcard featuring them. I thought uploading the photo montage I created might help you get a handle on exactly who I’m talking about (not all are pictured):
- Government: 3 current Supreme Court Justices (Chief Justice William Rehnquist along with Associate Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer), former U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, 5 U.S. senators, and Ehud Barak (former Prime Minister of Israel)
- Business: the CEOs of 3Com, Hewlett-Packard,
Nike, and Sun Microsystems (see a list of companies founded by members of the Stanford community) - Celebrities: Reese Witherspoon, Chelsea Clinton, Ted Koppel, Sigourney Weaver, Ted Danson, Jack Palance, Jennifer Connelly, and Fred Savage
- Sports: Tiger Woods, John Elway,
and John McEnroe - Education: the presidents of Yale,
the University of Arizona, and Johns Hopkins. - Science: Vinton Cerf “the Father
of the Internet”, and 17 astronauts (including Sally Ride), and the founders of Yahoo! (most
popular site on the Internet) and the founders of Google.
In other words, Stanford is one of the most strategic mission fields in the world! For an even fuller list of alumni, check out the famous alumni list maintained by Stanford itself!
As a university PR flak, I lust after such a list. All we’ve got are three astronauts, a few business leaders that very few people have heard of, and a lot of alumni with famous but rather common names (James Bond, Cheryl Crow, Richard Simmons, Steve Martin). We had fun a few years ago doing a special issue of our alumni magazine with the theme “famous names, not-so-famous faces.” We even got one of our many Steve Martins to wear a fake arrow through his head and juggle rubber chickens for the shot. Let’s see Stanford get William Rehnquist to do that!
I’m enjoying your blog. Good work.
Andrew
Yeah–it kind of boggles my mind. I just got a list of prospective Assembly of God students coming to Stanford. Any one of them could be a household name in 30–40 years.
It gives me the goosebumps. What an awesome responsibility before God…
P.S. I feel really sorry for your Richard Simmons grads. I had a friend in high school named Richard Simmons, and that name just attracts teasing. Fortunately, he had the social skills to handle it well. He’s a lawyer now, so people probably don’t make too many jokes. 🙂