Steven Brooks ’67

 

Born in Philadelphia and raised in Atlantic City, Steven Brooks ’67 came to Dickinson looking to launch a career in commerce, but he didn’t want a onedimensional education.

 

“I chose Dickinson because I knew I wanted a liberal-arts education that would help me in my career but also allow me to take advantage of theatre and the arts,” he explains.

 

That’s just what he did, majoring in economics, joining Follies, which allowed him to land lead roles in Guys and Dolls and Once Upon a Mattress, and benefiting from Dickinson’s personalized approach to education. “The small classes better prepared me for a successful career,” he recalls. “The writing and critical-thinking skills I gained helped me substantially over my career.”

 

That career took Brooks from accounting to criminal investigation to banking, to insurance, to trust administration. “Dickinson gave me the ability to do a lot of different things,” he says. “You could say it’s allowed me to avoid unnecessary obsolescence.”

 

And since retiring, Brooks has been anything but obsolete. He’s maintained his passion for musical theatre, performing recently in a community theatre musical review and playing the bass clarinet for a community band in Boynton Beach, Florida. Additionally, he enjoys bicycling with his wife, Lainey, with whom he has biked from Prague to Budapest, Albany to Montreal and Miami to Key West. To honor the college’s impact on his life while helping to fight what he sees as a growing global trend of anti-Semitism, Brooks joined the Old West Society by making a gift supporting Dickinson’s Asbell Center for Jewish Life through a charitable gift annuity.