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“This is a story about redemption,” says Alan Novich ’66.
It’s his story.
The story of a former practicing oral surgeon who ended up in corporate law before finding his way into marketing. Along his journey, he’d marry three times, have two children, kick a drug addiction, end up in jail for a white-collar crime, and learn that his dad had been right all along – there are no shortcuts in life.
Born in Brooklyn to a practicing dentist and a dental hygienist, Novich was a smart aleck and then some. Despite his mischievous ways, he managed to succeed in an accelerated learning program in high school. He wrapped up his studies by age 16 and headed off to Lafayette.
Novich’s first night at the College was a sign of things to come. He and a group of classmates headed to Phillipsburg, where he drank until he got sick. He says he quickly became the “Bluto” of Lafayette. Like his movie counterpart in National Lampoon’s Animal House, Novich was interested in partying and didn’t worry too much about his grades.
Naturally gifted, he had succeeded academically without too much effort in high school. To his surprise, Lafayette was different. The college’s rigorous curriculum required something more. Something, at that time, Novich wasn’t ready to give. He teetered on the brink of academic disaster throughout his college career with a grade point average that hovered around 2.0. While that would have sent most students packing after their first year, Novich was undeterred.
“I was the only child in a Jewish home — I couldn’t drop out,” he insists. “Maybe I wasn’t ready to go; I don’t know. I always had been able to get by with the minimum of work and the maximum of humor.”
His great sense of humor may have been part of the problem. Novich wasn’t interested in dentistry as much as he was in writing or comedy. Back in the 1960s, he says, those weren’t career choices or even options in a house with doctors. So instead of writing or studying, he partied seemingly straight through until the last semester in his senior year. That’s when for 10 days his carefree ways came to a screeching halt as he faced his pending comprehensive chemistry exams.
“I hated chemistry. I detested chemistry,” says the chemistry graduate.
Novich had put off taking four courses in his major until his senior year to take advantage of a loophole that would allow him to skip the finals and just take the comprehensive exams for the subjects. Or, so he thought. To his surprise and dismay, Professor Tom Miller made him take both the final and comprehensive exams in all four courses.
“It was like a kick in the head,” which Novich says he only survived because of his friend Jack Levine ’66, also a chemistry major. “Jack woke me up at 6 a.m. to come to study. I didn’t drink for 10 days. I think I started to understand that you had to put time in to get [good] results.”
Novich made the effort and passed. He graduated from Lafayette and applied to 30 dental schools. He was accepted by one – Loyola College in Chicago, his father’s alma mater. There he married and divorced before even heading off to his residency in New Orleans in oral and maxillofacial surgery.
It wasn’t long before Novich’s partying ways caught up with him in The Big Easy. Leaving behind those temptations, if not the carousing, he returned to New York City and finished his residency in 1974. After remarrying, he went into oral surgery practice and worked successfully for five years before succumbing to the pressures of a growing drug and alcohol addiction. Eventually, his drug use consumed his days and left him unable to practice. Instead, he supported his family, which now had grown to include two daughters, on income generated from a small insurance disability policy. He would remain in the grip of a cocaine addiction for four years before getting treatment. Three months in rehab and a lifetime of AA have helped him kick the habit.
“It will be 25 years in April,” he says proudly.
Clean and focused for perhaps the first time in his life, Novich returned to dentistry and to school.
“I found out that I could do everything but drink, and I gave myself an education that I deserved,” he says.
Attending law school during the day and conducting oral surgeries at night, he obtained his law degree in 1988 and became in-house counsel in his friend’s brokerage firm. Eventually, he would take more than 20 companies public before running into trouble again. At a time when prosecutorial fever for white-collar crimes was running high, Novich and several colleagues at Sterling Foster, a penny-stock brokerage firm, got entangled in a securities scandal.
“I was caught up in something way over my head. I made some bad choices. I made some bad choices because, frankly, I was enjoying the life,” he explains. “Alan Novich thought he ran the universe.”
His Wall Street success had left him “flying high.” So while he was still able to stave off the temptation of alcohol and drugs, he wasn’t able to say no when a childhood friend offered a “great opportunity” that would elevate him even further. He wasn’t able to turn down a shortcut to bigger success. Except, it wasn’t. It was a complicated scandal that put eight people behind bars and consumed five more years of Novich’s life after he was convicted of securities fraud in 1998.
“There were rotten days. The notion that it’s ‘Club Fed’ is a load. It’s a prison. They treat you lousy,” he says.
Still, Novich says, it wasn’t the “end of life.” He lost weight, read 535 books, and became a head tutor for the GED program, helping 45 men get their high school diplomas. His hard work paid off. His sentence was reduced and he was released from prison 10 months early for participating in the Residential Drug and Alcohol Program. Novich then began three years of supervised release.
For the second time, Novich had to start all over. This time it would be from the couch of his longtime college friend, prominent New York City matrimonial attorney Don Frank ’66. With the support of friends like Frank and cheered on by his now grownup, successful daughters, he landed a job in strategic planning at Steve Madden Shoes.
For more than a year, Novich has helped the company find its footing by trouble-shooting business problems, overseeing real-estate leases, and executing licensing agreements. He says the company had an extraordinary year, doubling in size. It was named brand of the year by Footwear Plus, the leading business-to-business magazine covering the footwear industry.
“I put in a long day and a hard day and I’m really proud,” Novich says. “I’ve turned my life around. Thank God.”
Last year a federal judge recognized Novich’s efforts and terminated his sentence of supervised release nearly two years early. Again, Novich found his hard work paying off – at work, with his daughters, and maybe now even with love. Novich says he is involved with a wonderful woman who accepts his past and, “more importantly,” laughs at his jokes.
Still, he knows there is much work ahead and much more to do, including perhaps co-producing a musical for off Broadway. That doesn’t deter Novich from looking back now and then. He can see clearly and he’s not afraid to admit where he went wrong.
“The older I get, the smarter my father becomes. Had I not been the ‘genius’ that I thought I was, I would have listened to him,” he says. “There are no shortcuts. You have to be spiritual, kind, and compassionate. You have to care about what you’re doing and then, if you’re lucky, it will all work out.
“I’m glad I learned it now because it is never too late.”
Alan Novich ’66