A family in Germany and a family in the United States became friends for life when they met through the K-Plan’s study abroad program.
By Fran Czuk
In September 1961, Kalamazoo College concluded two years of study and planning with the establishment of the K-Plan, the heart of which still guides the College today.
Initially a year-round quarter system, the plan included a new emphasis on study abroad. After a transition year, juniors were strongly encouraged to spend their fall and winter quarters abroad starting in the 1962-63 school year. To accommodate more students studying abroad, K added programs in Aix-en-Provence, France, and Münster, Germany. The program in Münster would prove successful and popular for more than 30 years and would involve at least one family for generations.
Doris and Hanns Rott were among the first families to host K students in Münster. A school principal, Hanns Rott was politically active and known for being open to foreign influences, said his grandson, Robin Wells ’95.
“They were very open-minded and liberal people,” Wells said. “My mother was raised with five siblings, and my grandmother always said, ‘If we can feed eight, we can certainly feed nine or 10.’”
The Rotts hosted K students for several years while Wells’ mother, Irene, was a teenager. After Hanns Rott passed away in the late 1970s, the program director asked Doris to resume hosting K students. She declined but suggested that some of her children might be interested.
Two of them, Georg Rott and Irene (and Olaf) Wells, said yes. Along with their children, Andrea and Robin, the Wells started hosting K students in their home around 1980.
“I had K students that I was raised with from 8 years on until I left the home in 1991,” Robin Wells said. “Some came and left and we didn’t stay in touch much, but we made some very strong connections with some of those students and their families that we still have to this day.”
Two of the strongest connections the Wells family made were with Ven Johnson ’83 and Patty (Franke) Williams ’85. Johnson was like a big brother to Wells, and they still get together occasionally.
Meanwhile, Williams and the entire Franke family would play a key role in much of Wells’ life.
Williams was one of five K students to spend spring 1984 in Münster.
“I lucked out,” Williams said. “I was placed with a wonderful family.”
After an uncertain start when Irene Wells was the last host parent to collect her K student from the train station, Williams said getting used to living as part of the Wells household went very smoothly.
Patty (Franke) Williams ’85 and Robin Wells ’95 ride in a car to the train station during Williams’ spring 1984 study abroad in Münster.
“I think I might have kicked somebody out of their bedroom,” Williams said. “We all shared a bathroom. It was a little bit of an adjustment living with another family, but they were nothing but welcoming, and the food was very good; Irene was a great cook. I would have lunch with her after morning class and we would all have dinner together and it was always very nice and easy.
“My German was OK. Their English, of course, was very good. They wanted me to speak German, and I wanted to speak German, but at least we could fall back on their English when we needed to. One of the first few nights I was there, we talked about elections, and I can remember sitting at their dining room table, trying to explain the electoral college, the election process and primaries in German when I was this 20-year-old kid who couldn’t really even explain it in English.”
During that spring, Williams’ father, Tom Franke, made a trip to Münster to visit her and the Wells family.
“The Wells were so welcoming,” Williams said. “My dad just loved people and talking to people, and he was immediately fast friends with Olaf and Irene. They were making plans to travel together soon after they met; that’s just how my dad was.”
Several times throughout the years, Tom Franke visited the Wells family on trips to Germany or met up with them in England when he was there for business. Olaf and Irene also traveled to his home in the Florida Keys. After her study abroad experience, Williams returned to Münster for a visit and saw the Wells family on vacations in England and Florida.
In the late ’80s, Robin Wells participated in high school study abroad for a semester, living with Franke and his wife, Lucy, in Marshall, Michigan. During that time, he took advantage of Marshall’s proximity to Kalamazoo to make several visits to his older sister, Andrea, who was spending a year of foreign study at K.
Over the years, the Wells and Franke families also kept in touch through Christmas cards, emails and occasional letters.
When Wells finished high school and had an opportunity to spend a year at K, he jumped at the chance.
“I was very keen to return to the U.S. when this spot was offered to me, to go to K for a year,” Wells said. “And I never looked back. Through further scholarships and help, I managed to stay all four years.”
His soccer teammates were his first, and in many cases, best friends at K. Arriving on campus in August 1991 for pre-season training, “I had no one,” Wells said. “By the time classes started a few weeks later, I had already 20 really close friends. Today, we still meet on Zoom calls, we catch up, and 30 years onward there is still a close connection.”
Through soccer coach Hardy Fuchs, Wells secured a marketing research internship with Adidas during the leadup to the Soccer World Cup in 1994 and wrote his Senior Integrated Project on how Adidas uses events such as the World Cup to market new products. “We would deal with the team managers, we would provide them with anything sponsorship related, we would go to their campus and have lunch with these amazing soccer stars,” Wells said. “My head was just spinning, and it probably still is! IT was an amazing experience.” Wells is still in touch with Fuchs, who coached varsity soccer at K from 1971-2003.
As Wells’ first year at K wound down, and his scheduled time to return to Germany approached, Wells was invited to stay at K and to lead the German Language House. At the time, there were four language houses on campus—German, French, Spanish and Japanese—each housing six to eight students who were studying that language. Students were required to speak their dorm’s language in the house’s common areas at all times.
Responsibilities at the German house included meal planning, shopping and assigning residents to turns cooking dinner for the house. Wells also organized events for the German house and with the other language houses, including a progressive dinner party where they visited each house for a culturally relevant course. At the German house, he hosted events such as German movie nights and Kaffeeklatsch get-togethers. Each year, the house held a celebration of the German national holiday of reunification on Oct. 3, including a barbecue with German-style bratwurst and a bedsheet on a clothesline to represent the Berlin Wall, which students were invited to spray paint.
“I have to be honest, I didn’t miss Germany one bit,” Wells said. “I was completely immersed in the American culture and the American way of life, playing soccer, watching American sports on television. I loved running the German house and doing these cultural things not because I missed them, but because I felt like it would bring the campus community together and I was glad to share my German heritage with campus.”
At K, Wells double majored in mathematics and economics and business, with a concentration in international commerce, and played soccer all four years.
Wells graduated early, in December 1994. After living for three months in Kalamazoo, Wells moved to the Chicago area to live with Patty Williams’ sister and brother-in-law, Barb ’81 and Richard Newman, and work for Richard’s small mergers and acquisitions hedge fund. Although K’s Münster program ended in 1995, the connections it created endure to this day.
“I cannot stress enough the impact the whole Franke family has had on my life and the person I am today,” Wells said. In addition to Tom and Lucy, Patty and her family, and Richard and Barb, that also includes Patty’s sister Carol Owens ’79 and her husband, Park, and Patty’s brother Jim and his wife, Jennifer. “They have been like family to me and Tom was very close to my parents all these decades.”
In November 1995, Wells returned to Germany for a job, and in April 1996, he started a finance position in Düsseldorf, Germany, where he met his wife, Sonja, on the job.
In 2002, Robin and Sonja Wells relocated to London with their 6-month-old, Sarah. They made London home for 16 years, raising their daughter and adding two boys to the family. Although Wells was successful working with European government bonds, he frequently thought about returning to the U.S.
The Franke and Wells family during their 2002 trip to visit Wells’ home in London.
In 2017, he and Sonja were randomly selected in the green card lottery. By January 2018, the Wells family was approved to move to the U.S. That summer, they settled in the town of New Canaan, Connecticut, about an hour from New York City.
Robin and Sonya Wells in their family’s new town, New Canaan, Connecticut, in 2022.
“I think inside of me I always had a very adventurous side,” Wells said. “I went on exchanges as a very young kid to England. I studied in the U.S. in high school. I always wanted to break out and see the world. My experience with Kalamazoo College was definitely the longest of all of these and shaped me the most, at the time when I was a young adult getting molded into the person that I am. I think the biggest thing I learned was adaptability, to deal with change, to deal with adversity. I was keen on change.
“I knew I had to reinvent myself when we came here. I moved from the institutional side to the private side, and I’m now with Bank of America Merrill, running a wealth management practice.”
The work is rewarding, Wells said, and friends from K were some of his first clients.
“Some of them I had been in touch with over the years, and others I just reached out and said, ‘Hey, I’m back in the country,’” Wells said. “These are friends for life.”
Wells continues to grow his client base in Connecticut and around the country, offering services including retirement, trust and estate planning services, asset management, investments, education planning, credit, lending and banking services.
When Tom Franke passed away in March 2022 at 92 years old, Williams called Wells to share the sad news.
“He is undoubtedly the most remarkable and generous human being I have ever met,” Wells said.
Irene and Olaf happened to be visiting Robin and Sonja for Robin’s 50th birthday, and they extended their trip to travel as a group to Michigan for Tom’s funeral.
“I think it was important to them to be able to come and share in that day and in the memories with us,” Williams said. “It was certainly important to me and my family. Now we have to make sure we stay connected.”
Williams and Wells have both shared a love of travel with their children, including Williams’ daughter, Kate Belew ’15.
Robin and Sonja’s oldest child, Sarah, 21, is in the chemistry program at Boston College, where she recently studied abroad in Paris. Their son, Philip, 19, attends Iona University in New Rochelle, New York, and is interested in business like his dad. Their youngest, Benjamin, is 16 and has a great set of high school friends.
“I’m a very positive person, so I always try to embrace the good as opposed to dwelling on the bad,” Wells said. “That’s something that hopefully I pass down to our children as well.
“I take a lot of pride in having been to K. It’s just amazing what this experience has brought to me and how it’s shaped me.”
