When I met Sameer
9/1/1982

Where Sameer and I spent time
Amherst College…we got particularly close Sr. Year having taken many Econ classes and the class every Liberal Arts Student fears, Accounting, together. We also had a great time together Senior Week as a guest of my roommate, Liz Shoemaker, at her home in Newport…we crossed paths later in life as well and I am so happy he was at our 25th reunion with his family.

What you remember and appreciated most about Sameer
There were not too many Florida kids in our Amherst Class and that gave the two of us common ground from the start. But it was not til Senior Year that I really got to know the guy behind the grin…At school, kids knew how fun loving and smart Sameer could be, but a smaller group knew him as someone who could debate almost any issue of current events or politics from any viewpoint at the spur of the moment. Sameer also had a creative side–debating teachers left and right challenging whether ir not the theories they held to really had merit. Honest truth, I figured Sameer would be our first classmate to be a Presidential advisor! He certainly had one of the great financial policy and business minds of a generation–to wit his resume will attest.

But he also knew how to leave that side go and to enjoy…he never would leave a friend in a scowl post a friendly debate where he probably knew better, but rather would say, “Let’s get food.”

I am so glad to have met his family at our Amherst reunion—it is now for old friends to tell bits and pieces of Sameer’s life to his children so they mmay grow up to be an extension of his ambition and his love.

My prayers are with the family…
Jana Susan Paley
PS I attached some photos of Sameer, Mike kaufman, John Brinitzer, and Liz Shoemaker from our Senior Week Adventure in Newport and a Photo–since our class is a bit ageless, I am not sure which reunion it was from.