November 2021 - Robin Cifaldi '88
I graduated from our fabulous school and left on a full scholarship to play tennis, first at Trinity University, and then at Florida State University, where I competed against other division one teams until graduating with a double Bachelors degree in English and Business.
I was married to Aram Haroutunian by the age of 25 and opened multiple restaurants, a catering company, and gourmet market by the time I was 28. By the late 90s Aram and I sold our businesses and took to the sea…Seriously. We worked on yachts and traveled the world and had amazing adventures together, until turning in our deck shoes and having our first child, Wyatt, in 2003. By then we had moved back to my home town of Hilton Head and opened yet another round of markets and catering companies along with having our daughter Sophia. Although business had always been a successful venture for me, I found that my heart wasn’t really in it, anymore. What I really loved doing was caring for others.
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Throughout the years I had taken care of my grandmother and mother as they had become ill, and I realized that what I really wanted to be when I “grew up” was a nurse. In 2013 at the ripe young age of 43 I enrolled in my first nursing course. It was a little awkward and challenging at first, being a student again, especially with such young coeds, but I persevered with many late nights doing homework along side the kids. I graduated from USC with my nursing degree in 2016, passed my state board exams, and became a critical care nurse in the ICU at Hilton Head Hospital where I remain today.
In the midst of making sweeping career and life changes in my 40's I also came out as being gay, a very scary and difficult decision. In 2016 I married my stunning and amazingly creative wife Amanda, chef and owner of Pomodori Italian Eatery. Though Aram and I are no longer married he has remained my best friend and we have a modern, blended family. Wyatt is graduating high school this year and Sophia is a freshmen at Prep. In 2019 we added our son Milo to our already bustling family. I have been blessed in many ways over the years, and I count among them my time on this island and in affiliation with this wonderful school, both as a student and as a parent. Go Dolphins!
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