Lisa Frusztajer and Larry Tye

Continuing our series "Getting to Know Our Neighbors," we want to introduce you to Lisa Frusztajer and her husband, Larry Tye.

Lisa and Larry have lived in the Esplanade since 2015. They rented for a year, then bought and renovated the condo they now live in. They learned about the Esplanade from two sources. The first was Larry’s uncle and aunt, Ray and Eileen Tye. (Ray chaired the Esplanade Board until his death in 2010.) The second was Lisa’s best friend, Nancy Kates, who is the daughter of Jacqui Kates, another former resident of the Esplanade and former Board member until her move to Brooksby Village a few years ago.

Lisa and Larry moved from Lexington to the Esplanade 8 years ago. They have been very happy with their decision because, as Lisa says, “This building is a gem!” They love the location, the ease of getting around, the vibrant Kendall Square, the ease of condo living, the pool, health club, and Ray Tye Room, the staff Management, and the building’s sense of community (for this they thank the ECG’s efforts). They have a house in Cotuit where they also spend considerable time.

Lisa and Larry have two grown children – a daughter and a son. Their daughter works at a neuroimaging lab at MGH. She is both a therapist and researcher and studies the science of mental health and the potential of various treatments for healthy brain functioning. Their son lives and works in Montpelier VT. He runs a gelato shop in downtown Montpelier and manages an equity portfolio. His shop was badly damaged by recent flooding so he is working to get his EFFE – known as “the original gelato making machine” – back up and running.

Lisa grew up in Lexington, speaking both Russian and English. (Her parents met in the US; her mother came from a strong Russian-speaking community in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and her father, a Pole who grew up in Siberia, arrived in the US via Poland and England.) Most of Lisa’s career has been working with tech companies; she was involved for years with Sun Microsystems in product management and business analysis. When she left her previous job in 2015, she transitioned full time to investing and supporting start-up founders, an area she had always been interested in. Her sweet spot is “small-scale early stage investing for under-represented founders, including women and people of color.” In fact, following our conversation, Lisa was interviewed for a podcast on early stage investing, innovation, and inequitable access to funds. She mentioned that less than 1% of venture capital funding goes to African-American women.  

This fall Lisa will teach at Boston College’s Woods College of Advancing Studies, “Home of the Original Comeback Student,” whose dean describes it as “providing an experience uniquely valuable for non-traditional students seeking to advance their education or career in a rapidly changing marketplace.” Lisa says that “I was inspired by Woods College’s mission and am looking forward to teaching non-traditional students who are starting or who want to start their own businesses. We’ll explore the many ways to get capital and gain entrepreneurship skills.” Developing this one short class has given her huge appreciation for what it takes to create and teach more extensive, advanced curricula. In addition to teaching and investing, Lisa coaches individuals and groups on their professional journeys and starting or building small companies. She loves her job and looks forward to her first teaching experience.

Larry is a non-fiction author and journalist known for his bestselling biographies of notable Americans including baseball legend Satchel Paige and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. He just finished his 9th book, Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Satchmo Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America, and just signed up for his next, on Jewish resistance during the Holocaust.  Tye spent the first half of his career as a journalist, mainly covering medicine at the Boston Globe, and now runs a Boston-based fellowship program for health reporters and editors.

Lisa says that, for fun, she loves to read, walk, bake, garden, volunteer on the board of their local Cape Cod village library, and be on the water “in the simplest possible boat.” She and Nancy Kates have walked dozens of the trails on the Cape — through dunes, forests, meadows, and the Cape’s remarkable tidal flats. Larry likes walking along the Esplanade and the beach, reading fiction and watching PBS mysteries, swimming in ponds and the ocean, cycling indoors and out, being at Fenway even when the Sox lose, and, recently, spearheading a likely quixotic bid to rescue local journalism on the Cape.

Lisa and Larry are smitten with their rescue Golden Retriever Nellie, who, before they adopted her, gave birth to 27 puppies in three litters.

Life is good for Lisa, Larry, and Nellie, and they have certainly contributed a lot through their writing, teaching, research, and enthusiasm for giving to others. Say “hi” when you see them!

Jane Hilburt-Davis