Tag Archives: college memories
Mike Gold Makes The Case For Big Swings That Lead To Practical Good
Mike Gold has built a life defined by range. He ran an art gallery in New York. He scaled an animation studio to nearly 200 artists. He has built backend systems for massively multiplayer online games, collaborated with DARPA on next-generation engineering tools, and even mined gold on a beach in Nome, Alaska.
Mike traces the throughline that unites these pursuits: he loves learning, assembling strong teams, and building systems that improve the human experience. Today that compass points to two long-term missions: helping more children learn to read earlier, and reducing serious sports injuries through a short weekly training regimen that is proven to deliver outsized results.
Highlights include:
Mining gold in Nome and what it taught him about persistence and problem-solving
Why early reading is one of the most studied areas of learning yet still lagging in successful outcomes
An introduction to RIIP REPS, a 35 to 40 minute weekly program designed to reduce injuries and improve performance especially for teenage athletes
The Amherst classmate he nominates for a future episode
You can email Mike at HancockGold@gmail.com. Thanks to Jordan Hayslip for nominating him.
Erin Cowhey Designs Spaces That Tell Her Clients’ Stories
Erin Cowhey is an Amherst College classmate and architect whose profession is awfully interesting its own right, but it interests me more than ever now that my daughter works as an interior designer. Erin runs her own firm in Brooklyn but wasn’t always destined for the field. She enrolled at Amherst with every intention to go pre-med before pivoting to architecture. In this episode, she talks about how personal tragedy reshaped her career path and how she’s balanced running her own firm with raising a family in New York City. What emerges is a portrait of someone who designs homes with the same care she’s taken to designing a meaningful life.
Highlights include:
Pivot with purpose: Erin’s fascination with art and architecture led her to trade medicine for design.
Resilience in loss: After losing her first child, she rebuilt her life and career by starting her own firm, prioritizing flexibility and family.
Brooklyn life, fully lived: She reflects on the joys and contradictions of raising kids in the city she and her husband, a landscape architect, love so deeply.
Design as storytelling: Erin views every project as a chapter in her clients’ lives: spaces that evolve as families grow and change.
Looking ahead: With her children nearing college, Erin is eager to take on larger, collaborative projects and to keep exploring creativity on her own terms.
Plus, Erin nominates two new guests to go next.
To learn more about her practice and get in touch, email her at erincowhey@gmail.com or visit her website, erincowhey.com.
Matt Collins' Blog 