Building on Past Successes

Caroline Gilman La Voie ’88 begins three-year term as Alumni Association President

BY JANA F. BROWN

While she had always maintained great affection for St. Paul’s School, Caroline La Voie ’88 gained new perspective on her alma mater when her daughters, Agatha ’20 and Ellie ’21, became students. During their years at the School, she became increasingly re-engaged, and she liked what she saw.

“I’ve had a chance to experience SPS 2.0,” says La Voie, who began a three-year term as president of the SPS Alumni Association on July 1. “It was my second version of the School, but this time through parental eyes. I remembered what a special place it is and wanted to get more involved in community engagement.”

Though her new role will come with even more connection to the School — and a seat on the SPS Board of Trustees — La Voie previously served as form director for the Form of 1988 (2018-23) and vice president of the Alumni Association Executive Committee (2020-23). She also worked with Mona Gibson ’87 and others to launch Parents@SPS — now the SPS Parents Association — to facilitate communications between parents and coordinate events, and has volunteered with the XIX Society, which engages women and nonbinary SPS alumnae, since 2022.

“My platform was literally having more parties, more engagement,” La Voie says of her reason for running for the Alumni Association post, and — quip notwithstanding — she has shown a great commitment to service not just at, but also beyond, SPS. She has served for the last five years as a class of 1998 agent at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business. She also recently joined the MBA Council at Tuck and is involved with various other clubs and organizations near her home in Orinda, California.

A 1992 graduate of Trinity College, La Voie previously worked in investment banking at Chase and Morgan Stanley, moving between New York, Connecticut and California, before settling at her current home outside of San Francisco. A soccer, lacrosse and club hockey player during her three years at SPS, La Voie is also a lifelong swimmer and still competes nationally at the U.S. Masters level.

As Alumni Association president, La Voie says she is most looking forward to working with vice president Ray Joseph ’90, who chairs the SPS BIPOC Alumni Advisory Council, on continuing to grow the community engagement opportunities initiated both by the School and by her predecessor, Will Dunn ’02.

“In my speech for the election, I mentioned that I wanted to work hard to engage the younger alumni,” La Voie says. “There is already a lot of great programming, but we want to make sure they stay involved and have chances to do that even more. I’m excited to work with everyone to make that happen.”

La Voie is fortunate to have an inside track to connecting with young alumni. In addition to her daughters, she also is the aunt of four other graduates: Elizabeth ’18, Hunt ’18, Billy ’18 and Sam ’19 Hobbs. At one point all six La Voie/Hobbs cousins were enrolled at SPS at the same time. “That made my mom pretty happy,” La Voie notes, “when she arrived for one of the Family Weekends.”

Over the next three years, La Voie plans to remind her formmates and all SPS alumni that there are many ways to remain involved with the School. From following SPS on social media to prompting them to tune into the livestream of Lessons and Carols in December, she’s eager to act as a link between the School and its greater community.