Washington College Magazine
Alumnus Recovers Family Heirloom At Reunion
Jean-Francois Seznec '70, who returned to campus during a perfect spring weekend to receive the Alumni Citation at Commencement, called Washington College "an instrument of fate."
Jean-Francois Seznec easily identified an antique watch engraved with his surname: his is the only Seznec family in Breste.
It was here that the French-born student came under the tutelage of some wonderful teachers—Peter Tapke, Bill Gould, Tom An and Margaret Horsley among them—who helped give him his start on the path to a distinguished career as a banker in the Middle East. It was here that he solidified his relationship with his wife of 36 years, Thackray Dodds Sezcec '69, an English and humanities major he had met in Annapolis, MD, as a high school exchange student. And it was here, 36 years after his own graduation ceremony, that a lost family heirloom was returned to him.
Fifteen minutes after the Seznecs' arrival on campus for Reunion weekend, Colin Dickson, professor of French emeritus, knocked on the door of Brown Cottage. He was holding a silver pocket watch, engraved with the words "J. L. Seznec, Breste."
"This is all very amazing," says Seznec, who immediately recognized the watch as his grandfather's. "Professor Dickson told me that Erika Salloch [a longtime professor of German] had given the watch to his wife before Erika died a few years ago. He recognized 'Seznec' as a French name and 'Breste' as a town in Brittany, and he thought I would enjoy seeing it. But I knew that watch. Breste is where my grandfather once lived."
Seznec says the last time he recalls seeing the watch, it was in his mother's dresser before she died, nearly two decades ago. None of his siblings knew what had happened to the watch.
"The funny thing is that I had known Erika way back," he says. "Thackray and I stayed with her about a week in 1970 after I graduated.
There is maybe the faint possibility that I left it there, but why would my parents have given me a family heirloom to take to college? Another possibility is that Erika Salloch found the watch in an antiques store, either here or in Europe, recognized the name, and picked it up on a whim."
The 100-year-old watch may not keep time, but it has a mysterious magnetism that has bound together people of Washington College from generation to generation.
"It's the hand of fate," Seznec says. "This object has found me, instead of my finding this object. Even if I had left it at Erika's there was one chance in a million that it would come back to me."
An expert in the political economy of the Persian Gulf, Seznec is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, as well as at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and serves as Senior Advisor to PFC Energy, a leading strategic advisory firm in global energy in Washington, DC. The Alumni Citation recognized his work in international banking and finance—ten of which were spent in the Middle East. His expertise centers on oil and politics, specifi cally the influence of the Arab-Persian Gulf political and social variables on the financial and oil markets in the region.
He told the graduating seniors that throughout their Middle East travels, he and his wife "remembered and longed for the beauties of this Eastern Shore. My experience this weekend demonstrates that we must always return to this jewel of a place."
Shortly after Jean-Francois graduated, he and Thackray were married in Washington, DC, in a backyard ceremony performed by Dean Gould. He was drafted into the French Navy and served for 18 months before returning to the States to earn a degree in international affairs from Columbia University. He began his career with Chase Manhattan Bank and from 1979 to 1984 worked in Saudi Arabia as senior vice president and general manager of the Bahrain Offshore Unit. He and Thackray now make their home in Annapolis.
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