When you see her on stage singing those World War II vintage songs as part of the group For Sentimental Reasons and looking very much like one of the Andrews Sisters, you might be hard pressed to remember her as Lisa Marie Ricci ‘85, a member of the first La Salle coeducational class.

Now Lisa Marie Stearns, she met her husband Dana, through his cousin, who was the original producer of the first For Sentimental Reasons show, a re-creation of a USO-type show in 1944.

Talking about how she came to be in that first co-ed class at La Salle, Lisa Marie said that she was very upset about the closing of St. Patrick’s School but “looking back, it was the best thing that could have happened because going to La Salle introduced me to a number of phenomenal people.  It opened up a whole new world and breadth of opportunities.”

“Among my fondest memories are of the Campus Ministry that was so 'on our level' and playing on the first girl’s basketball team when Tom Martin was the assistant coach.  I knew him from when he was at St. Patrick’s.  I think about performing in the play “High School Trilogy” and being the Ram for the Hub Club,” she reminisced.  “I loved, absolutely loved The Mime Show and working with Sister Liz and Brother Charles.  I still keep in touch with Paula Buratti, who was my best friend and was on the yearbook staff and also with other La Salle alums that I’ve just kept running into over the years -like Mike Bissanti, who was recently the subject of an Alumni Profile.”

“After La Salle, I went to Emerson College, majored in communications and played guard on the basketball team,” said Lisa Marie.  Fellow LaSalle Alum, Lou Cimini, gave me my first summer job in marketing. After graduating Emerson in 1989, I briefly worked for a marketing and PR firm and then served a short internship in Washington, D.C. with Jack Reed, who was a freshman Congressman that year.”

Lisa Marie came back to Rhode Island in 1992 and worked for Governor Bruce Sundlun for three years before becoming a film and television producer/director with Cramer Productions in Boston.

Then, in 2005, after a three-year hiatus from business, Lisa Marie took the bold step of completely reinventing herself from a business prospective.  “I wanted to start my own business where I could be a mom first – I did not want someone telling me that I had to be on the set, in the office or that I couldn’t take my kids to school,” she said.  “My previous career path would not seem to lead me to real estate investing but it did, somehow.”

So now meet Lisa Marie Stearns, asset management consultant for owners of commercial real estate in diverse areas of the country.  “The people I work with own properties in Texas, Kentucky and Ohio.  Right now the biggest challenge is arranging conventional financing so we are looking toward private money,” said Lisa Marie who is also a partner in some of the ventures.  Lisa said that the switch in careers required a quick learning curve.  “I’ve always enjoyed managing the details and seeing the pieces of a project come together - now I’m doing that with a totally different perspective.  It’s kind of funny, after all the years of being a ‘creative’ to now being considered the ‘numbers’ person on the team.  

Lisa Marie still gets to enjoy her creative outlet as co-owner and producer of For Sentimental Reasons.  “There are six singers and we are backed up by a live band - we have been together for more than a decade and we have traveled all over  performing for veterans, civilian audiences and corporations.  As a matter of fact, one of the other members of the group is Jenna Hashway, Aunt of senior Lisa Hashway. 

And there may be yet more LaSalle connections to come…Lisa Marie’s husband, Dana, who is an MD and teaches at Harvard Medical and Tufts Medical Schools in Boston, was so impressed with the Science building at La Salle that he wants to send their children Sam 7, Ty 5, and Faye 4, to LaSalle when the time comes -- in fact, Dr.Stearns said that the Shea science labs were better than those at Harvard Medical School.  “Sending our kids to La Salle would present some commuting challenges, since we live in Walpole, Ma,” Lisa Marie chuckles, “but my next door neighbor, Edwin Ryan, LSA class of 1944 would get a real charge out of it – and so would I!”

For more information about For Sentimental Reasons go to www.fsr44.com