One of the mysteries of Williams is precisely how the alumni office goes about its work. It is obvious enough that the alumni office tries to keep in touch with all of us, but how do they figure out who the potential major donors are?

Along these lines, it is interesting to note that Peter Currie ‘78 has joined the board of directors of Critical Path. From an alumni fund perspective, a board position isn’t that interesting since board members are not paid that much. What’s interesting is Currie’s resume:

Prior to joining General Atlantic Partners, Mr. Currie was a partner and co-founder of The Barksdale group, an early stage venture capital firm. Before that, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer of Netscape Communications from April 1995 until the sale of the company to AOL in March 1999. In addition, Mr. Currie held various management positions at McCaw Cellular Communications (predecessor company to AT&T Wireless) including Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Executive Vice President-Corporate Development. He also was a Principal at Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated. Mr. Currie holds an M.B.A. from Stanford University and a B.A. from Williams College.

Of course, from a distance, it is tough to judge Currie’s wealth, but it would have been tough to stay poor while following the above path. It is also worth noting that Currie is clearly a very smart fellow, as evidence by his Eph wife and classmate Elizabeth (Mize) Currie ‘78. I suspect that dual-Eph couples are much more likely to feel generous to Williams than “mixed” marriages would be.

If the alumni office hasn’t already made a major pitch to Peter and Elizabeth Currie in conjunction with the Climb Far campaign, it should do so soon. After all, any children that they might have can’t be too far away from applying . . .