Share Mission-Driven
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
By College of the Holy Cross
5
55 ratings
The podcast currently has 34 episodes available.
As we wrap up this series, Maura Sweeney ‘07 speaks with Mary Beth Sheridan ‘83. After studying abroad in England during her junior year at Holy Cross, Mary Beth caught the travel bug and discovered a passion for international affairs. Thanks to a well-timed question from Professor Helen Whall during her senior year, she embarked on a career in journalism that would take her around the world. Beginning in Spain as a freelance journalist, Mary Beth would go on to serve as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press, Miami Herald, and Los Angeles Times before joining The Washington Post, where she’s worked for the past 22 years and currently serves as the Mexico City Bureau Chief. Every day, Mary Beth lives the mission by uncovering stories that have a real impact on the lives of others. Thanks to her dogged commitment to the pursuit of justice and truth, Mary Beth is lighting the way for others to follow.
About the Lighting the Way Series:
In September 1972, the first women enrolled at the College of the Holy Cross, lighting the way for generations to follow, women who would advance to create lives of personal and professional impact across all vocations across the globe, inspired by the foundation of a Jesuit, Catholic liberal arts education.
The Mission-Driven: Lighting the Way podcast features College of the Holy Cross alumnae who are lighting the way for others today. Through their service, professional and personal pursuits, these women are living the Holy Cross mission and leaving a lasting impact on the lives of others.
Interview originally recorded in August 2023.
In this episode, Maura Sweeney speaks with Cymetra Williams ‘03. The conversation follows Cymetra’s winding path from the Pacific Northwest, to Worcester, Japan, NYC, New Jersey, and finally, landing in Oklahoma, where, at the time of the podcast recording, she worked as the Assistant U.S. Attorney for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma. Cymetra recently relocated to Washington, D.C., and now works as legal counsel for Booz Allen Hamilton. While her path has not been straight, the mission and purpose that drive her work have been unwavering. As a student at Holy Cross, Cymetra found support and inspiration from many different areas, with a particular appreciation for the programs run by the Chaplain’s Office. Today, she continues to live a life of service as she fights for the rights of the victims she represents. Thanks to her dedication to advocacy, care for others and care for self, Cymetra is lighting the way for others to follow.
About the Lighting the Way Series:
In September 1972, the first women enrolled at the College of the Holy Cross, lighting the way for generations to follow, women who would advance to create lives of personal and professional impact across all vocations across the globe, inspired by the foundation of a Jesuit, Catholic liberal arts education.
The Mission-Driven: Lighting the Way podcast features College of the Holy Cross alumnae who are lighting the way for others today. Through their service, professional and personal pursuits, these women are living the Holy Cross mission and leaving a lasting impact on the lives of others.
Interview originally recorded in August 2023.
In this episode, Maura Sweeney ‘07 speaks with Annie Long Sullivan ‘94. A native of Long Island, Annie ended up applying early decision to Holy Cross thanks to a friend from summer camp and never looked back. An English and French double-major, Annie served as a features editor of the Crusader and studied abroad in France her junior year. She continued to leverage her combination of writing and interpersonal skills after Holy Cross as she pursued roles in advertising. After a period at home to raise her young family, Annie embraced her inner entrepreneur by joining a startup and eventually founding a company of her own. Today, Annie runs soThis, an online book club that helps women connect over a love of reading. Thanks to her commitment to spreading the love of books and learning with others, Annie is lighting the way for others to follow.
About the Lighting the Way Series:
In September 1972, the first women enrolled at the College of the Holy Cross, lighting the way for generations to follow, women who would advance to create lives of personal and professional impact across all vocations across the globe, inspired by the foundation of a Jesuit, Catholic liberal arts education.
The Mission-Driven: Lighting the Way podcast features College of the Holy Cross alumnae who are lighting the way for others today. Through their service, professional and personal pursuits, these women are living the Holy Cross mission and leaving a lasting impact on the lives of others.
Interview originally recorded in July 2023.
In this episode, Maura Sweeney ‘07 speaks with Nalani Ramos Ruiz ‘21. A recent graduate of Holy Cross, Nalani has wasted no time making her mark on the future of Holy Cross. A member of the Holy Cross Board of Trustees, Nalani uses her voice to spread awareness about the importance of diverse people and perspectives among the Holy Cross community. Through her work at Raytheon Technologies, she continues to advocate for others and ensure that access to education and meaningful employment are available to all. Thanks to her care and compassion for championing the voices of others, Nalani is lighting the way for others to follow.
About the Lighting the Way Series:
In September 1972, the first women enrolled at the College of the Holy Cross, lighting the way for generations to follow, women who would advance to create lives of personal and professional impact across all vocations across the globe, inspired by the foundation of a Jesuit, Catholic liberal arts education.
The Mission-Driven: Lighting the Way podcast features College of the Holy Cross alumnae who are lighting the way for others today. Through their service, professional and personal pursuits, these women are living the Holy Cross mission and leaving a lasting impact on the lives of others.
Interview originally recorded in June 2023.
In this episode, Maura Sweeney ‘07 speaks with Kerry Sullivan ‘78. Former president of the Bank of America Charitable Foundation, Kerry spent her career forging a path in corporate philanthropy. Early on, she was instrumental in developing Philanthropic Management Foundation Advisory Services — a team responsible for providing philanthropic counsel and grants management to high-net worth clients. As the field of corporate philanthropy grew, so did Kerry’s role and impact. Today, she sits on numerous boards where she continues to use her talents to serve others. Thanks to her professional work in service of others around the globe, Kerry is lighting the way for others to follow.
About the Lighting the Way Series:
In September 1972, the first women enrolled at the College of the Holy Cross, lighting the way for generations to follow, women who would advance to create lives of personal and professional impact across all vocations across the globe, inspired by the foundation of a Jesuit, Catholic liberal arts education.
The Mission-Driven: Lighting the Way podcast features College of the Holy Cross alumnae who are lighting the way for others today. Through their service, professional and personal pursuits, these women are living the Holy Cross mission and leaving a lasting impact on the lives of others.
Interview originally recorded in May 2023.
In the first episode of the Lighting the Way series, Maura Sweeney ‘07 speaks with Quinn Fitzgerald ‘11. A mission-driven entrepreneur, Quinn co-founded a company in 2016 focused on creating products that provide a discreet lifeline to people in emergency situations. Her company, Flare, was sold in March 2023. In our conversation, we speak about Quinn’s journey to becoming the co-founder of Flare and all of the impactful moments along the way. As someone committed to championing founders, survivors, entrepreneurs and students, Quinn is lighting the way for others to follow.
About the Lighting the Way Series:
In September 1972, the first women enrolled at the College of the Holy Cross, lighting the way for generations to follow, women who would advance to create lives of personal and professional impact across all vocations across the globe, inspired by the foundation of a Jesuit, Catholic liberal arts education.
The Mission-Driven: Lighting the Way podcast features College of the Holy Cross alumnae who are lighting the way for others today. Through their service, professional and personal pursuits, these women are living the Holy Cross mission and leaving a lasting impact on the lives of others.
Interview originally recorded in May 2023.
In this final episode of Season three, Siobhan Kiernan from the class of 2021 speaks with Sean O'Connor from the class of 1992. As a fundraiser and member of the Holy Cross Annual Fund Team, Siobhan talks with Sean about his accomplished career in fundraising. Today, he continues to make a difference as the Chief Development Officer at the National Audubon Society. Their conversation gives you a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to support the nonprofit organizations that we love. The Holy Cross mission of serving others is central to the work that they do. As people foreign with others, their careers modeled the idea of doing well while doing good.
Interview originally recorded in August 2022.
---
Sean:
When I'm being reflective of the relationship between the effort and the work that I've applied my daily profession to the outcome, it completely aligns with my worldview of actually helping other people and helping organizations and helping the world. Whether it's through art, or healthcare or science or human rights or conservation, I feel pretty good about that.
Maura:
Welcome to Mission Driven, where we speak with alumni who are leveraging their Holy Cross education to make a meaningful difference in the world around them. I'm your host, Maura Sweeney, from the class of 2007, Director of Alumni Career Development at Holy Cross. I'm delighted to welcome you to today's show.
In this final episode of Season three, Siobhan Kiernan from the class of 2021 speaks with Sean O'Connor from the class of 1992. As a fundraiser and member of the Holy Cross Annual Fund Team, Siobhan talks with Sean about his accomplished career in fundraising. After a year in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, Sean accepted a role raising funds for a small Catholic school on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Thanks to the support and encouragement of some Holy Cross alumni, he accepted a position with CCS fundraising, which brought his fundraising overseas and greatly expanded the scope of his work. Today, he continues to make a difference as the Chief Development Officer at the National Audubon Society. Their conversation gives you a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to support the nonprofit organizations that we love. The Holy Cross mission of serving others is central to the work that they do. As people foreign with others, their careers modeled the idea of doing well while doing good.
Siobhan:
Hello everyone. My name is Siobhan Kiernan and I am a 2021 Holy Cross grad, and current member of the Holy Cross Fund Team. And I'm joined here with Sean O'Connor. Hello, how are you?
Sean:
Hi Siobhan. Good to see you again.
Siobhan:
Yeah, you too. Where are you zooming from?
Sean:
I'm zooming from Goldens Bridge, New York, which is Northern Westchester County near Bedford and North Salem.
Siobhan:
Nice. Oh my gosh. I'm zooming from New York City, so...
Sean:
Oh wow. Whereabouts?
Siobhan:
In like little... I'm on the Upper East Side right now. It's where I grew up.
Sean:
Oh, that's right. I grew... For a while. I lived on 83rd and third when I did all this.
Siobhan:
Oh yes, we talked about this.
Sean:
Yeah, right.
Siobhan:
Oh, that's awesome. Are you from New York?
Sean:
No, I actually grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts where there's a school called Holy Cross, is there I think. And I in that way was born at St. Vincent Hospital and then grew up really in Holden, Massachusetts, which is just north of Worcester. And I went to Wachusett Regional High School. And I know your next question is why I don't have an accent, but for some reason I dropped the Worcester accent. When I went to Holy Cross, actually, ironically, I think my accent started to go away.
Siobhan:
They ironed it out of you.
Sean:
They must have ironed it out of me, yes. I could put on the Worcester accent, but only under severe pressure.
Siobhan:
That's so funny. I've been told that I don't have a New York accent either.
Sean:
No, you don't.
Siobhan:
So I guess there's something about Holy Cross and taking out accents. So you kind of really just started this, I guess, but why Holy Cross? I mean, I know you're from Worcester, but some people I know probably wouldn't have wanted to go to a school in their hometown. So why did you stay, and what about Holy Cross made you want to go there?
Sean:
It is a family school. For me, my grandfather was class of '31 and my father was class of '66. My uncle was class of '62. I think even have one of my other father's relatives went there. And so I always had heard about Holy Cross. And I lived on campus, I didn't commute even though I was about 10 miles away from Worcester, or from home rather. But it was obviously one of the most important decisions I made as a young person. And then probably, in truth, is probably the best school I got into when I was applying for colleges. That was another part as well.
Siobhan:
No, but that worked out. The one thing I love about Holy Cross is that you can feel very much away even if you are local.
Sean:
Right.
Siobhan:
I have friends who lived off campus and I remember I always lived on campus and my thought process was, you have your whole life to live outside the gates of Mt. St. James. Why would you want to go now?
Sean:
Right, for sure. But I enjoyed it. It was great.
Siobhan:
Yeah. So what was your time on campus? What did you do? What did you major in? What activities did you like to do?
Sean:
I was a history major, and I took my academics semi-seriously, I think. I'm a lifelong reader and I probably am still interested in history and read a lot of William Durant history surveys when I'm on the plane on a tarmac or something like that. So I still enjoy learning, but I spent a lot of time on extracurricular activities. I didn't play sports, and maybe once in a while would play a soccer pickup game if one existed. But I was involved in the radio station, I was the station manager for a year.
Siobhan:
Oh cool.
Sean:
And a DJ. And then I was involved, I think in one of the campus activity boards, I think my senior year. Is it called SS or something? I'm trying to remember then what the acronym was.
Siobhan:
Or is it CAB? I mean, today I think it's probably the equivalent.
Sean:
Something like that. I would put on concerts at Hogan. I did one concert. I think I almost got kicked off campus because I did not go through the proper channels of getting permits and things like that. So I learned a lot at college about doing things like that. We had a band called The Mighty, Mighty Boss Tones playing in the basement, which was a fun, legendary show. And then when I was at the station, radio station, we did a kind of benefit concert for the Worcester Coalition for the Homeless in Worcester. There was a band named Fugazi that we brought up to Worcester and did a show, which is fun. So we did some fun stuff connecting Worcester where I grew up to Holy Cross. I was also a resident assistant in the Mulledy basement. So yeah, it was a fun four years.
Siobhan:
Wow. So you mentioned you were a history major. I'm always curious, because I did economics, why history? And did you have a favorite class?
Sean:
I kind of go back and forth between really US history and European history or world history. And I did take an African history class, which is pretty influential. Professor David O'Brien was my advisor and he's kind of a labor and Catholic historian. And I still am interested in labor history. I can get really geeky I suppose, about history. I just really do enjoy it in terms of understanding patterns and issues and big issues that we're facing now as a country, and what are the historical analogs, and what has happened in the past that informs where you are right now. And all my family were English majors or our English majors. I think my daughter is an English, is going to become an English major, not a history major. My son was a poly sci major at Bucknell and a film major.
But history is, I just enjoy it. And I go back and forth. I probably read more non-US history these days, but it's an escapism too for me. Dealing with everything else, it's kind of fun to read about the Age of Enlightenment or something like that, and just learn about different thinkers and different parts of history that you weren't aware of. And then if you get really excited, you can go deep on those things and get really geeky.
Siobhan:
I took one history class in Holy Cross, and I found that I almost felt like an investigator, like a detective, which as an economics major it is... That's a different way of thinking. So actually I have a lot of respect for the history department. Cause you very much have to tell a story, and really unpack documents and things. And I think that's...
Sean:
Yeah, for sure.
Siobhan:
And you mentioned your professor. I always love to hear about, because the school is so small and the community is so great. Is there anyone that comes to mind who had a meaningful impact on you at Hogan?
Sean:
Academically, David Chu, who is my accounting professor, and I just didn't do as well in accounting, but that taught me a lot about the importance of studying, actually. There was a professor Whall when I took my early survey class in history, which kind of awakened me to academic writing in a different way. And I lifeguarded at the pool, so got to hang out with the late Barry Parenteau who just passed away. And that was fun times there. And then some of the student life people, I think Dean Simon, I'm trying to remember his name, but he was the one that I worked with a little bit in my senior year. He was the Student Life Dean, if I remember correctly, out of Hogan. And then actually career advisors towards the end. I think one of the more influential people in my career, if we segue into that section, is this John Winters, who is there as a career advisor who really got me on the pathway of where I am right now.
Siobhan:
Oh, fabulous. Actually, that was a great segue. That was actually my next question was going to be, could you just take me through from commencement to where you are?
Sean:
Sure.
Siobhan:
Your journey. I did look into your bio a little bit and you had a very vast career so far, but I want to hear about it from you, your whole journey.
Sean:
So when I got out of school, I remember second semester, senior year, gosh knows what you're going to do. But I think I interviewed, think at some advertising agency, Leo Burnett, that has historically hired Holy Cross grads and did not get the interview. But I was able to go to Chicago for that all day interview, which was kind of fun. Get to stay in the fancy hotel for the first time. And then when I got out of school I ended up going to Jesuit Volunteer Corps. So I did the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in the northwest and was stationed, or placed, I guess is the language in Auburn, Washington, which is between Seattle and Tacoma. And my placement, or my job, the volunteer job was working at a residential youth shelter for physically and sexually abused kids. And I was doing that for a year.
And so my job was to take to care of them, drive them to school, make them dinner, take them on field trips, and then talk to them. And then, learning what it meant to be a social worker and would write about my day and my interactions to help the therapists and the psychologists who are helping them connect the dots about what issues they were facing. They were typically there for a couple of weeks. It was transitional short term, before they might have been between foster placements or they might have been just removed from the home. And the state was trying to figure out what to do with them. So it was a very eye-opening experience, making $20 a week living in a community in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps.
But that moment I was actually really interested in understanding how nonprofits were financed. I was like, all right, so how did they actually get the money to do the work? How does it actually work? So I was able to understand a little bit about the particular organization I was volunteering at. It was called Auburn Youth Resources. And they would receive a lot of money from the King County, which is the local county outside of Seattle. But the philanthropy piece, that people would give them money was relatively small. And anyways, it was, it's an opportunity for me to think about that.
I wanted to do good but also do well. And I think a lot of this has to do with Holy Cross, but also that my parents or both teachers. My brother's a teacher, my sister's a teacher, my other sister who went to Holy Cross works in nonprofits as well, she was class of '95. So I think that, my family upbringing and combined with Holy Cross in terms of its ethos of men and women for others, I think really kind of pushed me into this career, which wasn't really a career back then.
I don't know if you want me to keep going, but when I got back from the year of volunteer work and I came back to the East Coast, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I lived in Worcester, outside of Worcester. I thought I wanted to move to Boston where, because I was nearby that was a big city, or move to Washington DC where a lot of my roommates were and friends. But John Winter in the Career Center said, did you ever think about development? And I said, what's development? And we talked more about it, what that actually meant. And he connected me with a guy named Pat Cunningham, who I think is class of '85. And Pat Cunningham worked in New York City, and at the time he worked for the Archdiocese of New York.
And the program there was that they were trying to help small Catholic parochial schools become sustainable. So small Catholic schools in New York City were always a big deal for helping teach kids and families who didn't have a lot of money, but get a good education. The outcomes were terrific. Typically, a lot of the kids went on to college. But the financial model was becoming challenging, because the religious communities who would tend to teach at those schools was diminishing. So they would have to hire lay teachers, you don't have to pay a Sister as much as you have to pay a layperson. So I think that caused like, oh my goodness, tuition is not covering the cost. And so they were trying to figure out a way could they raise money? Like private high schools, like St. John's in Shrewsbury or St. John's in Danvers, as BC High or Notre Dame Academy, they tend to raise money from their alums or parents. Pat Cunningham's job was to figure that out with some parochial schools in New York.
There was a philanthropist who just passed away a couple of years ago, a guy named Richard Gilder, who was a Jewish, who founded a company Gilder, Gagnon, & Howe. Anyways, he believed in Catholic education and funded a lot of these schools. He believed in the outcomes and giving back in the community. And so he was essentially underwriting director and development positions. So the salary that a director of development would require. So there was an opportunity for me to work at a school called St. Columba Elementary School, which is on 25th between eighth and ninth without any experience at 23 years old.
Siobhan:
Is it still there?
Sean:
It is still there. But unfortunately, the school is closed and is now probably a private or a charter school. It Is the school... Had a couple famous alums, Whoopi Goldberg, graduated from... it's the school Whoopi Goldberg graduated from St. Columba, and as well as a singer from the sixties and seventies, Tony Orlando went to St. Colo. He's a guy who sang Tie A Yellow Ribbon and Knock Three Times. You ever hear those songs? No. Knock three times on the ceiling.
Siobhan:
Maybe.
Sean:
Yeah. I don't want to sing it. So what I had to do is work with the sisters and figure out a way to help raise money. And I learned a ton. It was fun. I started talking to some of the colleagues who were doing the similar work in the city, and we created a consortium of colleagues, I think we called it ourselves development, gosh, I forgot what we called it. Ourselves like Development Resources, Development Resource Group, I think DRG maybe. In any case, we would meet and just try to do some brainstorming and figure out how to solve problems. And we actually got some funding to actually help our little mini consortium. And I was there for about a year. It was fun.
Siobhan:
And then I know that you also did some foundation work, correct?
Sean:
Yeah. So after what? So I was doing that for a year, and then I had heard about this big company called CCS Fundraising and it's called... At the time it was called Community Counseling Service. And it's still around. It's a big, big fundraising company. And at the time, back when I was there, it's probably quadrupled since I was working there. Any case, we didn't have any money at St. Columba for professional development. So there was this big conference in New York called Fundraising Day in New York. And it is held every, it's the third Friday of June every year. So it's like a one day, it's one of the biggest fundraising conferences in New York. But to go to it, you know, it's like $600 or something like that. And we didn't have any money at St. Columba to do that. And so there was a scholarship opportunity.
So if I wrote an essay to the committee that they would send scholarships out. So I wrote an essay to the committee and they underwrote my admission. So I was able to go to the event. And at the event I ran into an executive at CCS Fundraising and talked to him. He encouraged me to apply to CCS, which I did. And then I got a job with CCS Fundraising, which really did change my career for the good. And they sent me all around the world and helped train me in fundraising. And it was great. I was there for a long, long time. And that's where I did do some foundation work. So to continue on that, so when I got to CCS, I went to Yorkshire, England to do some work for the Diocese of Leeds and raise money there. So essentially CCS as a company that would get hired by nonprofits to actually help them raise money.
Siobhan:
Like a consultant.
Sean:
A hundred percent like a consultant. And it's weird because you'd be 24 years old or 25 years old and you're a consultant. And I remember a lot of my family friends is like, what do you know? You're just a kid. And there was a lot of truth in that, because I didn't know what I was doing. But the way the model worked at CCS was that they would train you, and there was actually different levels of consulting. And actually modern consulting firms like McKinsey have a similar model where you have the partners who are the thought leaders, and the business development people who actually find the clients. And they just need people to do the work. And those are the directors, the associate directors who essentially just took direction from the leadership.
And in the case of going to the Diocese of Leeds, my charge was to work with parishes and coordinate, manage, design and execute what I would call mini-campaigns for each of those parishes. So I would go to the priest, I would orient the priest on the plan, we'd recruit a leadership team and go out and raise money. It was a very, very difficult assignment, but I learned a lot about resilience and persuasion and problem-solving and persistence and all that stuff, because it was a very intense five or six months. But it was fun. Get to live in Yorkshire in the middle of the winter when you're 24, 25 years old. That was great.
Siobhan:
I was going to say, that also just sounds really cool because you kind of get to dabble in so many different types of advancement. I know in development, I remember when I first learned about it, I was like, oh, that's like for schools. And I'm like, wait, no. There's fundraising for hospitals and political campaigns and nature organizations, which I want to get to eventually.
Sean:
And human rights organizations or arts and cultural groups. I think that that's a really good point, Siobhan, because where I got really lucky was that I, and it really serves me well right now at this stage in my career that I have a very diverse set of experiences and what we call multi-sector kind of experience. I'm not just a higher ed fundraiser, I've done every single type of nonprofit fundraising. And when you do that, you get to see where the commonalities are, and what the challenges are. Everything from a museum on Japanese sculptor named Isamu Noguchi, or to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island, with Dr. Watson, who just basically discovered DNA. So I've been very blessed with having been exposed, and working with very different kinds of organizations. And I know that at this point in my life, there's not a lot of people who have that kind of experience. And so that kind of becomes my professional marker, I guess. So the person who's done a lot of big complex organizations, but also a lot of small organizations too.
Siobhan:
So I have two questions on that. The first is, it's a soft question. In all of those different types of fundraising, which was your favorite, I guess what kind of fundraising was most enjoyable for you?
Sean:
I do the arts and cultural world because I find the board and the people to be very interesting and fun to work with. It is perhaps the hardest sector to work on because a lot of what we do is 400 billion is given away by people and corporations and foundations every year. And the top sector, it's religion, is probably the largest recipient of philanthropy, healthcare and education come in pretty close after that. So you're going to get a lot, it's not saying it's easier to raise money in higher ed, in healthcare, but in some ways it is because in healthcare it typically centers around solving a problem or the so-called grateful patient. "Dr X saved my life, I'm going to give him all my money or a lot of my money" and higher education is "professor Y saved my life and got me on the right path, so I'm going to give money there." Arts and cultural tends to be not necessarily the top priority people. It could be second or third or maybe sometimes fourth. And so it's harder sometimes, but I find it to be more interesting.
And then in terms of my most enjoyable experience, probably when I worked in London again in 2000, when I got to do some work with the International Accounting Standards Board, which sounds very boring, but the job was very exciting because what the job was, was to raise money for an organization that was trying to harmonize accounting standards around the world.
Siobhan:
Oh, cool.
Sean:
I got to travel around Europe to actually interview executives on their willingness to support this cause, this kind of new plan. And it was just fun working on that kind of scale. One of the great things about this, that I've enjoyed about my career is that I have to learn about every kind of thing. I'm not an expert on accounting, but I have to be able to have a conversation about it. I'm not an expert on art museums, but I have to be able to at least have a conversation about it. And here at Audubon, I'm not an ornithologist, but I have to be able to talk about climate change and the importance of eelgrass in San Francisco Bay. Because what I'm doing is representing these organizations, and serving as the middle person between philanthropy and good causes. And that's on thing I think my profession's about. It's not about asking for money, in a weird way. It's really about creating an environment where you create opportunities for people who have money, who want to give away money, to do it in a way that they feel comfortable doing it.
Siobhan:
No, I feel the same way, especially in connecting with alums. It's not about asking them for money. It's about what did you love about Holy Cross and how can you support that again?
Sean:
Exactly.
Siobhan:
But you mentioned Audubon. And I just, so again, with advancement just being so vast, if I'm being honest, I didn't know that such an organization existed. When I saw that that's where you work, I was like, oh my God, of course that would exist.
Sean:
I'm going to have to do more work then, Siobhan to make sure you hear about this.
Siobhan:
But it makes sense. Birds are so important, and the environment is such, no pun intended, but a hot topic right now. But how did you, I guess, find that organization and what brought you there?
Sean:
Yeah.
Siobhan:
Is that one of your passions too? Is the environment something that strikes...
Sean:
It is, I think certainly climate change and birds over time. The truth is that they found me and reached out to me. And then, right now at this stage of my career, I think when I was a little younger... And I have some advice about careers too, but, and this is what I share with people, is that you really do want to go to a place where the people, you kind of vibe with the people that you're going to work with. I think mission is very important, but as you're building a career, it's very important to find people that believe in you, give you the resources to be successful in where you can learn. At Audubon, at this stage of my career, because I have a leadership role, I can control some of those things. I can control the type of culture I'm trying to create with my team, and which I think is very, very important for fundraisers. For fundraisers to stay, is actually understanding what makes motivates fundraisers and what motivates development. Because I think a lot of this is, there's some similar aspects I think to a really good fundraising personality.
But Audubon, I think the reason why I'm here is because they wanted to grow. And one of the things I've learned about my career recently is that there's some people who are comfortable in a status quo environment. And then there's some people who just like to build things. And I'm certainly in the ladder, and part of this is because of my consulting background. I like to solve problems, and figure out a way to grow. I know that sounds like every organization wants to do that, but not necessarily. Because I think in order to do that, there has to be an alignment between the board and the leadership of the organization, and actually a really good case of why growth is needed. And then of course they need to invest. So you need to spend money to raise money.
All those elements were in place when I was talking to Audubon about five and a half years ago with leadership. So if I see alignment between the Chair of the Board and the CEO, and if they kind of align with the Chief Development Officer or the person who's in charge of raising money, that's when really great things can happen. Because this is never, in my view, a money issue. There's plenty of money in this world right now. This is always a strategy problem. How are we getting the money? How are we telling our story? Do we have the mechanical pieces in place? Do we have the right people? Are they trained? Do we have the right leadership in place? Those are the things that staff ultimately control. And if they are in the right spot, and doing it the right way, the money should come.
It's very difficult to get all that stuff figured out. And that's really, at the end of the day, that's what the work is. Is that I think good fundraisers have a vision for what the word will look like or feel like. At any given day, I know what kind of meeting I'm trying to design between a board member and my CEO, and I know what I want them to say and I know who I want in the room. So I'm always trying to get to that point. Not as easy as it sounds, because it just takes time to get all those things in place, and to make sure that the conversation's happening. And making sure you have answers to all the questions that funders want. So for instance, at Audubon we're... Bezos gives a wait a lot of money for climate, we spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make that approach happen the right way. I don't want need to digress, but that's a lot of it how I think of it.
Siobhan:
No, and that's awesome. Actually, so I have a few questions that are going in different directions, so I'll see if I can loop them all together. So the first one is, I guess, what keeps you in this work? What drives your day? What kept your passion in the work that you're doing?
Sean:
Well, yeah, there were times, I remember in 2000, 2001 during the first dot com boom, I remember I would've been about 30 or so, there was a lot of people in my peer group trying to go to dotcom and early in internet stage companies. And I did talk to some people, this is after I got back from London. And I remember talking to some, what I would call philtech. Phil, P H I L technology, so philanthropy technology companies that were starting at that time and ultimately did not pursue them. And then on occasion, during the late two thousands or before the 2008 recession, could I parlay this experience into some kind of for-profit thing? I think ultimately, what kept me is, which is what you hear when you hear people give career advice when you're younger is, and I think there's a lot of truth to this, is if you actually like what you do and eventually you become good at it, then everything else takes care of itself. So I really do like what I'm doing, and I've become pretty good at it. And so then everything else takes care of itself.
And being intentional about the different moves you make. And because designing a career is... I'm not saying it's a full-time job, but you cannot approach that casually. You have to be attainable about it. And what I mean by that is that whenever you go to an organization, and it doesn't really matter what sector we're talking about, but certainly in the fundraising sector, you want to understand not only how you're going to be successful there, but what will it lead to? What if you're successful at XYZ organization, will it give you an opportunity to grow within the organization or maybe even go to another organization, that type of thing. Depending on what you ultimately want to do.
You don't have to become a Chief Development Officer. You can become the best frontline fundraiser in an area that you really, really love. And that's the great thing about this sector is that there's a lot of different diverse job functions. You have the development operations side, which is very much oriented towards tech people and people who are data-driven. The foundation relations kind of world, which really solid writers do well in that sector or that section of the work. And then frontline fundraisers are really usually a kind of sales salesperson orientation.
Siobhan:
I was going to say, as someone who is on the soliciting end of things, I feel like I'm a salesperson for Holy Cross, which I love because as someone, and you get this as someone who benefited from the product, it almost makes the job easy. But I was curious, so as someone, you weren't on both ends of the spectrum, so the soliciting side, which we've said isn't all about asking for money, but sometimes it comes down to, okay, here's my wallet. And then also the giving away of money. How would you, I guess, compare those roles? Because right now, as someone who's just starting out, I find the idea of grant giving and the other side of the work to be intriguing.
Sean:
It is intriguing. So my experience and foundations, I did some work with the MacArthur Foundation and the Gates Foundation, both those opportunities, I got to obviously work closely with them to understand more how they work. And over my career, I've got to work closely with some foundations. And over my career, I've probably felt the same thing that you're feeling, oh, it would be fun to get away money. But it's funny, they kind of have the same challenges in some ways because they... And I think that that actually helps you become a good fundraiser with foundations. To kind of boil this down, everyone has a job and everyone has to do things. So if you're a foundation officer, you have to do things, you have to give away money. And it is hard to give away money, because you're going to be evaluated on how the partnerships that you developed, did you squander the money or did you give the money away smartly? And if you gave the money away, did you do a good job following up in a and actually evaluating their efficacy? And that is hard. And there's a lot of pressure.
And so if you orient yourself as a, now I'm going on the solicitor side, if you orient yourself to, I'm going to make this person's life easier, then you're talking to them like a person and you're creating a partnership. How can I help you with your job, or what you have to do? We're a good organization, we're going to communicate with you, we're going to spend your money the right way. Then it's a great thing. So you're not really asking them for money, you're really creating a partnership. And I think that that makes all the things in the world.
But then if you think about designing strategies for a billionaire who wants to, some billionaire from Holy Cross calls you Siobhan and said, Siobhan, I want you to run a foundation for me and figure out... I want to give away money to human rights organizations and arts organizations in South America, and I'm going to give you a budget and you figure it out. So what would you do? You would probably start creating a network. You would go travel and see some, understand the issue. Go to South America, go visit museums, create a network of people, and then start to give away money. Yes, that would be fun. That would be really fun.
But going to a big foundation and running a program, you do have to be a subject matter expert. Oftentimes, not all the time, because now there are a lot of foundations out there that I've been encountering that will hire a friend, someone they trust to actually help them with their foundation. I met this foundation recently where, all of a sudden they found themselves with a whole lot of money and they wanted to create this foundation because that's what the estate had directed them to do. And they're going to find the person that they trust. And so sometimes that person's not a subject matter expert, but they're a trusted advisor to the family. But if you're a subject matter expert in human rights, you're coming at it from a different direction. You're an academic that goes into a foundation.
But I do think it's a growing, obviously a growing field as the wealth inequality continues to increase. I'll just give you a little tidbit on, this is one of my favorite facts. When I started in the business, mid-nineties, I would always go to the Hudson News in Grand Central and buy the Forbes 400, which would come out, I guess it would come on the fall. I'm trying to remember when it did. But I always loved that because I would go home on the train and just read it, and learn about the families who had wealth. And I quickly learned that not everybody, wealth and philanthropy are not the same thing. People with money and people who are philanthropic, there's like a Venn diagram in the middle. But to be the four hundredth, wealthiest person on that list, right back in the mid-nineties, the net worth was 400 million or something like that. It's a lot of money. What do you think it is today?
Siobhan:
It's more. Because I feel like... I was going to say, I feel like, because nowadays, and maybe it's because I work in fundraising, a million dollars doesn't seem like that much money anymore.
Sean:
Something like 1.7 billion.
Siobhan:
I was going to say at least a billion dollars.
Sean:
So why that's extraordinary. Not only how much it's gone up. Might be 1.4, but I know it's something like that. There's a whole lot of people below that. We don't even know who those people are.
Siobhan:
Wow.
Sean:
They're not necessarily publicly known. So the amount of people... It used to be rather, you used to be able to understand where the wealth was. And now I think you just don't, A very interesting world we live in now in terms of the relationship between wealth, philanthropy, and our business. There's a lot of new philanthropists coming on board that are coming out of the nowhere, partly because they're just not as well known. It's just more. There's more opportunity. That's why we're not really at a wealthy, it's not about money, it's about strategy.
Siobhan:
I was also going to say, I find... At least I can relate to least the capacity because sometimes, you use all the data that you have and you assume that someone has this profile, but you could either be over assuming, but then you could also be easily under assuming too. There are probably people that you don't think they would give maybe over a thousand dollars. But if you go about it, as you were saying, strategy, if you talk to them, if they're into music and you talk to them about the new performing arts center, you might inspire their generosity more than if you're talking to them about a new basketball court.
Sean:
I think that that's a hundred percent right. And I think, that's why I think it sounds a little old school. I think research can be a little overdone. I love research by the way. I think that my research team, they call me an, I'm an honorary researcher because on occasion, if I'm sitting in front of the TV or something like that, I'll go deep on some name and I just love finding these little nuggets of information. I'll send our director of prospect research these random emails. I said, look into this, look into that. Because at least at Audubon, I'm looking into people who care about climate, who care about birds, who care about...
Siobhan:
Again, that is so unique.
Sean:
Well, there's one, if you look on... Here's one of the cool things about birds besides the fact they're cool. If you go to... The Fish and Wildlife Service did a report on one of the most common outdoor activity, obviously gardening is actually probably the top. Birding is actually second or so. They estimate over 40 million people at one point in their life have gone out and watched birds, whether it's in their backyard or something like that. It's an awful lot of people.
Siobhan:
It is a lot of people. That's a fun fact.
Sean:
Yeah, it drives our work for sure. And we're doing this cool thing. This is kind of a little bit out of sequence, but we have this thing called Bird Song, which is this project we're doing. In fact, you can look on Spotify, and this has been in the New York Times. A music supervisor, a guy named Randall Poster who works with Wes Anderson and Martin Scorsese approached Audubon, and he got the bird bug over the pandemic because he was at home and listening to birds. He approached all of his musician friends, people like Jarvis Cocker and Yo-Yo Ma and Yoko Ono and Karen O and Beck to do songs inspired by Bird Song. And so he has 180 tracks.
He's also asked his actor friends like Liam Neeson and Matthew McConaughey and Adrien Brody to read poems that are about birds, including a bird poem written by another Holy Cross alum, Billy Collins, who is a poet who wrote a poem about sandhill cranes in Nebraska. He has Conor Oberst from Bright Eyes reading that poem. Anyways, there's going to be a big album, a box set release, and all the money's going to go to Audubon.
Siobhan:
That's awesome.
Sean:
Birds are having a moment.
Siobhan:
Birds are having a moment. It's a bird's world and we're just living in it.
Sean:
It is. That's a good way of putting it, I'm going to borrow that.
Siobhan:
You can totally, as long as you give me copyright credit.
Sean:
I'll absolutely give you copyright, and all the royalties.
Siobhan:
Exactly. And I do want to just be cognizant of time, but as the podcast is about Holy Cross's mission and how it influenced your life, and I know you did talk about this a little bit at the beginning. I just wanted to hear more about how Holy Cross impacted your life and your work, and maybe Holy Cross' mission in addition to being men and women for others.
Sean:
I found a profession that I think in the beginning it might not have made sense, but I have to tell you now, at my age, there's a lot of people, a lot of friends who went to all lacrosse and other places are some ways jealous of this career because... So I have this ability to do well and do good. Use persuasion techniques or skills that could be implied to advertising or banking or some other sales job. But when I'm being reflective of the relationship between the effort and the work that I've applied my daily profession to the outcome, it completely aligns with my worldview of actually helping other people and helping organizations and helping the world, whether it's through art or healthcare or science or human rights or conservation. I feel pretty good about that. And I also feel very fortunate because I don't think I'd be in this profession if it wasn't for Holy Cross, partly because combined with how I was raised and also Holy Cross reinforcing some of those values and elevating them.
And then, really the specific moment when Jonathan Winters actually said, hey, you should look into this job. And really made the connection between me as a recent alum and an opportunity with another Holy Cross person. So if Pat Cunningham's listening to this podcast, and I reach out to him once in a while, was a very influential person in terms of where I'm at right now, and I'm very grateful for that. So it's a fun profession. I encourage, I do a lot of connecting with other Holy Cross grads that have helped people. And there's a lot of Holy Cross people that I've met who are in this business, and you try to get together. Because I think there's a really interesting theme here in terms of what we do. And a lot of us are doing, in pretty good organizations, doing really, really good work. So celebrating that as a profession would be fun to do.
I actually, Danita Wickwire, who is class of '94 joined my team recently. Which is incredible, because I told her, she reminds me a little bit of why I'm in this profession. Because if you go into this world of fundraising, it's hard to keep up with everything. But then, because she's here and because of our common history at Holy Cross, it's nice to have her because we were able to align around that a lot. And I think she participated in one of these podcasts as well. And she's a really, really influential and important leader in this space as well.
Siobhan:
Oh, that's awesome. She is an outstanding volunteer and name in our office. So our office is a big fan of Danita, she's great. Also, what I really like too that you said is, I don't know, I find that the job doesn't really feel like work and it's comforting to hear that doesn't change.
Sean:
It doesn't really. No, it doesn't change. I mean, listen, it's not saying it's easy all the time, but it's certainly fun.
Siobhan:
And then I guess you kind of touched upon this, but for someone starting out in this work, what is some advice you would give? And then I guess also, looking back on your journey that got you here, is there anything that you would've done differently?
Sean:
I don't think I have any regrets about choices I've made, also philosophically don't believe in that because I don't think it's helpful. But I think in terms of advice, I do think, and I know this sounds slightly cynical, so I soften this a little bit, but I really do feel it's important to go to a place where your boss and your colleagues believe and align with how you think about this work. I think often, sometimes I see folks make a mistake going to an organization for the mission only, and then what ends up happening sometimes, not all the time, is that the expectations aren't there. And then it can really be a hard place to be.
One of the hardest things about this business is... It's a very optimistic, enthusiastic person, but I also know how hard this is and things can go wrong, and you might not have control over certain things. And so educating non-fundraisers, or orienting them about how this work actually unfolds happens with experience. So I'm able to do that with a little bit more ease than I did when I was younger. But be very intentional about your career. If you have a lot of the elements in place, that's great. If you're able to grow, that's great. Don't go for the money, so to speak, or for the mission, make sure everything else is in place. That's my advice.
Siobhan:
That's very deep. I think that's applicable to anything too.
Sean:
It is. But I remember, I give a lot of career advice and sometimes I see people, it looks really good, but you got to ask all the right questions, make sure you're asking the questions so you have it all figured out.
Siobhan:
Yeah. Then I guess, is there any type of organization that you haven't worked with yet that you'd want to? You said you've worked with most of them, but is there anything that maybe in your journey that you've seen...
Sean:
I was in Columbia last week, the country, because we do a lot of work hemispherically, so I was in Bogota and Cali. I really enjoy, where I think this is headed, and maybe it would be fun, is like this orientation about raising money in other parts of the world. I've done it before, I've done it in England, and it's different in every country and it's evolving and this cultural barriers of this and all that stuff. But I like the way the globalization in terms of how we're thinking about the NGO, bottom up.
And also the importance of diversifying our space. Our profession has to be more intentional about how to do that and create space and opportunities for people of color and other backgrounds because there's a lot of history and reasons why it is what it is. And we have to continue to try to figure out ways to open up doors and opportunities that are just not going to happen naturally. You have to be forceful about that. So any place that is in that space.
You know what, the weird thing about this space, and I talked to Ron Lawson about this, who's a Chief Operating Officer of a coalition, homeless coalition in New York. It's in a weird way, it's really hard to raise private philanthropy for some social justice issues like homelessness and hunger. Hunger, not as much as it used to be. But I'm always curious about why that is. And there are some organizations that kind of outperform. There's so much money that's given away and there's some sectors that are just not there yet. And that would be fun to understand more why that's happening and help with that too.
Siobhan:
Cool. I just wanted to see where you were headed next.
Sean:
I don't know.
Siobhan:
Nonprofit.
Sean:
Yeah, it's fun. I'm glad you're in this space and you should keep in touch, Siobhan, it'd be fun to see where your career's going to take you.
Siobhan:
I was going to say, I'll have you on speed dial.
Sean:
Good. Awesome.
Siobhan:
Awesome. And before I let you go, I just wanted to end on a fun little speed Holy Cross round.
Sean:
Sure.
Siobhan:
Very quick. Okay. What was your freshman dorm?
Sean:
Mulledy
Siobhan:
What was your hardest class?
Sean:
That economics class with Professor Chu. No, actually accounting class with Professor Chu. Yeah.
Siobhan:
Nice. Best professor you've ever had?
Sean:
Probably Professor Chu
Siobhan:
I see him sometimes, so I'll be sure to let him know.
Sean:
I think he just retired actually. I thought I just saw that he's retiring soon.
Siobhan:
He is, but he has his little research.
Sean:
Yeah, you can tell him that. Tell him, gave him a shout-out. I think I was, it might have been... That was his first year he got here, I think.
Siobhan:
Oh, that's so funny. Senior dorm?
Sean:
Carlin.
Siobhan:
Oh, nice.
Sean:
Yeah, Carlin
Siobhan:
Favorite spot on campus?
Sean:
I guess I liked the radio station. That was a great place to escape.
Siobhan:
Oh, cute. First meal you think of when you think of Kimball.
Sean:
Ah, that's good. Probably just like chicken fingers, I guess. They actually existed, I think that they did. Or that Turkey. There's like some kind of Turkey meal that was good there.
Siobhan:
Oh my goodness. The Thanksgiving Turkey dinner slaps. Best restaurant in Worcester. This is good because you're a local.
Sean:
Yeah, well the best restaurant right now that I was just like, wow, this is a pretty good restaurant. There's that sushi place on Park Avenue is really, really good actually. And then when I was there, I guess Arturo's was a great Italian place, but that's not, I think that's closed now. Best Breakfast place is probably Lou Roc's on West Boylston Street, which is a really, really good diner.
Siobhan:
Good to know. Everyone always talks about Miss Worcester's, I'll have to...
Sean:
Miss Worcester's is good, but Lou Roc's is a little further out, but it's excellent, excellent. Yeah.
Siobhan:
Oh, fabulous. All right. Your go-to study spot?
Sean:
The Library right side, as you're walking on the right side. Yeah, not the left side.
Siobhan:
Okay. And if you were going to campus right now, where are you going first?
Sean:
I am going to check out this new performing arts center which is the coolest looking building in Worcester, I think.
Siobhan:
Right? It kind of looks like an airport, but in a good way.
Sean:
It's a very cool, it's one of the coolest architecture buildings I've seen. And it's certainly one of the coolest things in Worcester. I think it's awesome. I want to go inside it.
Siobhan:
And then last question, your fondest Holy Cross memory.
Sean:
Fondest Holy Cross memory? Oh, I don't know. I really enjoy fall at Holy Cross. That's what I enjoyed the most. Yeah, and I like fall in Worcester. Yeah, for sure.
Siobhan:
That's a good answer.
Sean:
Yeah.
Siobhan:
Especially fall at Holy Cross is beautiful.
Sean:
Yeah, like a football game in the fall. That's probably it.
Siobhan:
Nice. Wow. Thank you so much for chatting with me.
Sean:
Thanks Siobhan.
Siobhan:
Taking the time out of your today.
Sean:
That was great, thanks. Thanks for the opportunity.
Maura Sweeney:
That's our show. I hope you enjoyed hearing about just one of the many ways that Holy Cross alumni have been inspired by the mission to be people for and with others.
A special thanks to today's guests and everyone at Holy Cross who has contributed to making this podcast a reality. If you or someone would like to be featured on this podcast, then please send us an email at alumnicareers.holycross.edu. If you like what you hear, then please leave us a review.
This podcast is brought to you by the Office of Alumni Relations at the College of the Holy Cross. You can subscribe for future episodes wherever you find your podcast.
I'm your host, Maura Sweeney, and this is Mission-Driven. In the words of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, "Now go forth and set the world on fire."
Theme music composed by Scott Holmes, courtesy of freemusicarchive.org.
In this episode, Colman Benson from the class of 2024 speaks with James Scott from the class of 1995. They connected back in the fall of 2022 to speak about James' path from Ohio to Holy Cross to the Marine Corps, culminating in his current career in banking. They speak about how a clever marketing commercial changed the course of James's career path and how you're never too old to reinvent yourself. What's even better, the friends you make on the Hill and the Holy Cross Alumni Network will always be there to support you on your journey.
Interview originally recorded in December 2022.
---
James:
Two skill sets there will never be a shortage of, at least not in our country, and that's storytelling and problem solving. Those are the two skill sets that you'll never have a shortage of in terms of the workforce. You can do those two things, you can do them well. You can do just about anything you want in the industry that you want. And sky's the limit.
Maura:
Welcome to Mission Driven, where we speak with alumni who are leveraging their Holy Cross education to make a meaningful difference in the world around them. I'm your host, Maura Sweeney, from the class of 2007, Director of Alumni Career Development at Holy Cross. I'm delighted to welcome you to today's show.
In this episode, Colman Benson from the class of 2024 speaks with James Scott from the class of 1995. They connected back in the fall of 2022 to speak about James' path from Ohio to Holy Cross to the Marine Corps, culminating in his current career in banking. They speak about how a clever marketing commercial changed the course of James's career path and how you're never too old to reinvent yourself.
After 20 years of service in the Marine Corps, James chose to try something new and tackle a different challenge in his career. He landed in banking, first with Santander Bank and now as Vice President, Business Relationship Manager at Bank of America. The good news is that no matter what you choose to do, the core skills you learn at Holy Cross remain relevant. What's even better, the friends you make on the Hill and the Holy Cross Alumni Network will always be there to support you on your journey.
Colman:
Thank you for joining us.
James:
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Colman. So once you reached out to me, it was one of those callings where I felt like, hey, any conversation helps anybody, my words, my journey, give somebody some type of inspiration, I'm all for it, right? So anyway to give back to the Hill, I do what I can, whether it's small or medium or as big as it can be.
Colman:
Very excited to be interviewing today. Just a little bit about your Holy Cross experience. I know that you were part of the football and the track team, and I think that was the last undefeated football team until this year, the team of 1991. So can you just describe your time as a student on the Hill and what you enjoyed in some of your extracurricular activities?
James:
I'm a graduate of 1995 Holy Cross, not Catholic, not from New England, certainly not from Massachusetts. So my journey began out in the Midwest in Ohio, and then my connection quickly with Holy Cross became through a coach who was recruiting out in Ohio, recruiting football players. And I happened to be on the radar and took a flight out to Boston. Now, this is where it gets kind of a little interesting because I actually thought Holy Cross was in Boston the way they gave me the tour, kind of showed me along the Charles River and all through downtown. So I got super excited and then I guess I got distracted. I fell asleep on the ride from Boston to Worcester. Next thing you know, I'm on this beautiful campus. So right away, I just had a connection with players at that time. Met a couple of professors.
Very good friend of mine at the time was Margaret Freije. And so that was almost instantaneous connection. I flew back home, excited to tell my dad that I think I found the college of choice, leaving Ohio, wanted to end up in Massachusetts and then ended up showing up on campus. And then we'll talk a little bit more about that initial experience once I got on campus as an official student at the school. But again, that journey was something totally unexpected, totally culture shock to me, especially back in the nineties. So it just took a little bit of time for me to acclimate and get adjusted to a new environment, a new situation. But having sports was again one of those avenues, those channels that kind of gave me an out to express myself and get away and get away from the differences and cultures that I had with the majority of the student population, but allowed me to focus on something with other people who had similar interests to me, which is sports, competition and winning. So kind of a little bit of background about my journey on how I ended up at Holy Cross.
Colman:
Awesome, thank you very much. Funny, funny tricks they'll do for recruiting, but I just had a question. I know you were a math major. Was there any reason you decided to pick math? Did you think about maybe a future career in mathematics or a future career in business? As I know a lot of Holy Cross grads will choose econ or math and eventually end up in business.
James:
Fair question, but neither of those answers are anywhere close. There's no method to the math. I had a love affair with mathematics in high school. It was something I was really good at. Logic just seems to fit with me. So coming into college, again, the first college graduate in my family, so I had no real focus on in terms of, hey, what do you want to be after college life? So just a quick transition into the mathematics world, quickly realized that it's a lot more complex than it was in high school, but I was just one that kind of enjoyed the challenge, enjoyed the reasoning behind it, enjoyed the logic there, the thought processes, and next thing you know, you're a sophomore going like, okay, do I switch majors or not? And wasn't an option for me at the time. So I would say I was probably around that average to below average mathematics major, but I was kind of locked in at that point, so I was definitely going to gut it out.
Colman:
Well, so I guess moving on, after you graduated from Holy Cross, you decided to join the Marine Corps. What led you to this decision? Was there anything specific? Have you just always wanted to join the Marines or serve?
James:
So like you, you're the Army ROTC, right? So I'm going to see if I can draw a little bit of similarity here. So you're getting a taste of military life as you're going through school. So it's embedded in your daily routines, so you're getting fully immersed into what it will be like on the other side. For me, my journey was a little different. I went home between my freshman and sophomore year, and that was the year I got bored quickly, right? Football, school, a lot coming at me a hundred miles an hour. I get home, life falls to almost an idle throttle. So it was definitely something I didn't want to have happen at least every summer. So I like to tell people that slaying the dragon commercial for the Marine Corps came on at the right time of my life. Bored sitting at home, commercial comes on and marketing geniuses as they were, I wanted to sign up and slay a dragon. So I called the phone number at the bottom of the TV and recruiters being as good as they are, the moment I called, he said, I got a guy, I want you to meet the guy. I'll have a captain over at your house tomorrow morning.
That captain showed up in his blue Deltas that next morning, gave me the pitch, took me out to Ken, Ohio with the school there, gave me a little heavy dose of you name it, pushups, pull ups, three mile run, all of this stuff. And I just wanted a little bit more. I had to have a little bit more what he was giving. Recruiters being as good as they are, they only give you a little taste and they kind of tell you, you can't do it. Don't tell me I can't do something because then I become one of those, I'll prove it to you, I'll show you.
So he wanted to meet my father, came by the house later that week. My dad didn't think this was going to happen. He's like, yeah, you're not joining the Marine Corps. So this guy shows up in his blue Deltas and my dad's like, oh my gosh, you really are joining the Marine Corps. So that summer I take off to Quantico for six weeks, your Army ROTC, what we call it, the two meters class. So you had an opportunity to get two heavy doses in the summertime, six weeks apiece, full immersion in the military lifestyle bootcamp. And that first six weeks I was hooked. The adrenaline rush, the competition, the camaraderie, the esprit de corps, just people who believed in a common goal and focus, all wanting to do the same thing. I was hooked.
I was hooked. And then that second summer I did the same thing. I already kind of knew what my career path was as a junior going into college. I knew it was a Marine Corps. And so graduation day, I had my dress blues on underneath my cap and gown and went across the stage, got my diploma. Unlike you, I still had the option to say no up until I got to the stairway and I did a swearing in. But I took that robe off, got on the steps, got my silk, my gold lieutenant bars, and I was gone. And the rest is, as they say, it was history. And 20 years later, and I'm retiring as a Marine Corps officer. So that was a great decision on my part, but I was locked in focus in terms of, again, that the core principles of what the Marine Corps offered, I was hooked.
Colman:
That's definitely a lot to relate to there for myself. As you talked about, kind of having that never quit attitude, never taking no for an answer, saying you can't do it. That's something that's really stuck with me. And then I also know I have a couple buddies that are in the Marine program here, and they do the same thing. Six weeks before their junior year and six weeks before their senior year, before they end up commissioning after. So a lot of similarities there, which is really cool to see. Some things never really do change. Transitioning, I know you spent 20 years in the Marines, so thank you for your service for that. Once you decided to get out, what do you think was the biggest adjustment transferring from a military career to a career in business?
James:
As I look back and reflect, you kind of have people who tell you, there's one train of thought that says military folks have a difficult time adjusting because they're used to discipline and structure and routine and everything's a procedure and a process. And I think I like to try to demystify that for a lot of people. I don't necessarily subscribe to that. I don't think it's true. I think military lifestyle is different, yes, but we're still people, so we're still able to adapt and adjust. But I think for me, one of the biggest things was accepting the fact that it was over as a career choice and I should be okay with not wanting to fall into something similar. So a lot of people kind of take the skillsets that they've honed in over a career in the military and they kind of just parlay it on to defense contracting or something of that nature.
And I wanted to be comfortable with my decision and say, don't just follow a normal path if that's not what you want. And I certainly didn't want that. I didn't want defense contracting. I didn't want anything to kind of do with the military lifestyle anymore. Just kind of put it away, enjoyed it. I really had a great time, but I wanted a different challenge. And so for me it was just accepting the fact that it looked different, doing something that was completely away from the norm and being comfortable with that decision. For me, that was the toughest call to make and being okay with that. Not just saying, hey, I'm just going to pick up where I left off, but being okay with starting from zero and then building up a second career that I felt like I would enjoy a lot more as well.
Colman:
Definitely starting a new career and shift can have its own challenges, but it's very good that you decided to take almost a path less traveled. And I know you went from originally at Santander Bank and now to the Vice President of Business Banking Relationships, relationship manager at Bank of America. So if you could just tell me a little bit about your current role here and maybe what your day-to-day life looks like and some of the tasks and skills you have?
James:
Yeah, so banking for me is, that's the new space we're talking about. So I've been in banking now for five and a half years and I'm still learning. I feel like a brand new lieutenant again in the Marine Corps. So you sit back and you absorb and you interact with your bosses and your peers try to absorb as much as you can. But my current role as the relationship manager is exactly as it sounds, right? So I work with privately held companies within Connecticut and Western Massachusetts, and there's a certain target threshold for revenues that we work with. So we have small business and median businesses in the corporations that we work with. My job is basically sales, getting out there and trying to connect with those companies and kind of deliver values and solutions to those companies like every other bank out there. I knock on the door and try to peddle wares and say, hey, I have a solution for you and I've got a way to help your business grow.
And so some of that is being able to connect with people. And some of that is, for me, I look at it as problem solving. So if you were to think about, maybe this is before your time, before mine as well, there used to be people who sold vacuum cleaners door to door. And back in that time intel was if you even knew somebody who had carpet. Knock on random doors and you didn't even know if someone had carpet. And so some of that is even true today, but I love problem solving, right? That's my shtick, if you will. And so part of this crafting of the puzzle is let's just find out who has a need, what's the demand before I go knocking on doors. So that research and trying to help people identify problems, that's my skillset, that's my strength. And then being able to take what I do as at my everyday activities, which is researching, trying to find out what industries have what particular problems, and then helping solve those problems, and then learning in the bank because we've got hundreds of solutions that we can offer, but I'm not going to throw that as an individual.
My job is to kind of customize and say, here's two that I think will solve your problems. So just drawing it out and listening is probably the biggest skillset set that you can bring to relationship managers. Just listening, helping identify problems before you start rattling off solutions. And just being able to sit back and be comfortable in silence as people talk and you're listening, you're looking for problems and then you're helping them solve. So it's not a one size fits all, but it's working together to make sure you deliver the best solution,
Colman:
Definitely. Intelligence shapes the mission. So it's funny how you see them in your research now and how you can use that for your problem solving both in your past career and now in your present career at Bank of America. What advice would you give a Holy Cross student to leverage their liberal arts education to start their career in business? A lot of students coming out of Holy Cross are competing with kids coming from traditional business schools or getting a traditional business or finance major. How can a Holy Cross student use their liberal arts degree to their advantage?
James:
Yeah, that's a tricky one. And I remember in the mid-nineties where liberal arts education was the thing. It was the creme de la creme and you kind of went away from specific majors, so you wouldn't dare be a finance major. That's just suicide. And so there's a pendulum sway, and now you do have liberal arts which kind of took a hit in terms of industries looking for a particular talent and skill sets. And so now the challenge is being able to re-craft the story. That would be my suggestion. So as you look and you say, well, what value does a liberal arts education offer? Well, as you all kind of write your own story, I would say start with answering that question first, which is like well, you tell the story of what you think liberal arts education does for you.
I tell my son, who's 7, of course, 7-year-olds olds don't listen to anything you say, but at least I start the message by saying two skillsets there will never be a shortage of in this, at least not in our country, and that's storytelling and problem solving. Those are the two skillsets that you'll never have a shortage of in terms of the workforce. You can do those two things. You can do them well. You can do just about anything you want in the industry that you want. And sky's the limit. So if you could figure out a way to convince, again, older folks that are sitting in the position of hiring people, that you have those skillsets, and liberal arts has kind of helped you shape those, you're not just singularly focused on a problem, but you kind of see the problem as an ecosystem. So you solve one thing, maybe you create another problem, you solve that problem. So if you can start to craft a story that tells people what the liberal arts education, what value it brings to a company or an industry, I think that's the keystone that gets you into any industry or any line of business that you want to get into.
Colman:
And I know that the alumni network from Holy Cross is very strong, just like me being able to reach out to you to do this podcast. Is there anything you can speak on about using the alumni network to your advantage and to help support you?
James:
Yes. I would say my first advice is don't follow my example. So in terms of networking, I probably would be the worst example. After I graduated, I lost connectivity with a lot of people who were close, dear friends while I was in school and didn't kind of build and continue those relationships while I went through the military, unless you were in the military. So if I ran across a Holy Cross alum, I would definitely connect. But one of the things that I did do successfully was I stayed connected to Holy Cross writ large, the campus, the alumni giving. So that thing I kind of held dear to, but in terms of the thing that actually made the school special, the people, I kind of lost focus of that for a huge chunk of time. Now you say, God bless LinkedIn, God bless social media.
That allows me the opportunity to kind of right my wrongs. So I again capitalized those platforms and reached out to a lot of Holy Cross network. And the funny thing is, you're all accepting. So it's one of those deals where you kind of shoot yourself in the foot and say, why didn't I do this 15, 20 years ago? Why didn't I stay connected? But I guess that's the beauty in this thing, which is staying connected doesn't mean every day. Staying connected doesn't mean once a quarter. There's no time limit. It's just even if it's a casual hello, how are things going? Or hey, can you really sit down with me and kind of talk to me and help mentor me through a career? I personally have found, I would never say 100%, 99.9% of anybody that has the Holy Cross logo attached to their LinkedIn profile are willing to help you out in any way that they can. That's my personal experience. That's what I tout and that's kind of what I sell people on in terms of what Holy Cross alumni means, what that network means. And I have a wife who's very jealous of it because she went to American University and there's absolutely no connection there.
Colman:
Big rivals too. Big rivals. That's awesome that you always know that Holy Cross alumni and fellow classmates will always be there to help support you. So pivoting from that, I understand you do a lot of volunteer work with veterans and veterans programs. How do you think the Holy Cross mission of being men and woman for others lives on through this work? And are there maybe any similarities you see in your volunteer work to the Holy Cross mission statement?
James:
I think there's a lot of crossover and sometimes you have to stop even just sitting talking with people like you to reflect on how they're almost one and the same. So whether I consciously knew I was basically being groomed in a particular way at Holy Cross, and then you see some of that carryover, or even now it's a consistent theme. So whether I was attracted to that, and that's why I ended up at Holy Cross and kind of lived that lifestyle or whether it's because the faculty at the school and the students at the school kind of help you see that as well. I think it's a hybrid of both of them, but that's kind of been the central theme, at least throughout my military career and then thereafter. So there's a reason why I volunteered for what we call the Veterans of Foreign Wars Group is because they're not just this self-serving entity that's out there.
I wouldn't join the organization if were. So yes, do we have 30 minutes for people to kind of trade war stories about War War II? Yes. I mean, that's just fascinating to listen to a World War II veteran talk to you about D-Day and what his role was. But the preponderance of our time, 95% of our time is looking for veterans who need help in our local area and then how we can help that veteran. Even if it's something as simple as they're down on their luck and they need a hot water tank installed in their house because they just can't do it, they don't have the money to do it, we're there to help. So we're looking, we always actively look for ways that we can actually help veterans in need, whether it's the fundraising events to make sure that we're able to provide those resources that they may need, but always looking for any way that we can assist even outside of the scope of, again, a veteran that served in a foreign war or not.
So always looking to give back to the community, led by a great group of veterans from World War II and Vietnam, and I'm just happy to be in the shadow and learn and mentor for them because at some point they're going to pass the baton on and say, all right, they consider me young thinking about that. Right? Sorry, you're the young one. It's time for you to take the lead. But a great group of men and women who are always setting a good example again on that Holy Cross mantra, which is men and women for others, and that's why I'm part of that group.
Colman:
That's awesome. That's really great work that you do. Thank you very much.
James:
Oh, thank you.
Colman:
All right. Last question here before we wrap it up. Any last parting advice? I know you've bestowed a lot of wisdom upon us, but any advice you'd give to a Holy Cross student now just before they graduate, looking to finish that degree or connect with alumni? Anything you think that's good that's going to help them before they graduate?
James:
I would say going into graduation is one of those periods where we try to cram a whole lot in and in the shortest amount of time because I guess in our mind's eye, we kind of see the finality, right? We're like, wait a minute, I only have one more year. Shrink it down even more. Wait a minute, one more semester, one more month, and then you end up just bypassing a lot of the stuff. We're trying to get check marks in the box. But I would say that's probably a good time to say maybe slow down, shore up some friendships. One of the regrets I have, and I don't live by regrets, but one of the regrets I do have is just not finding a new friend, right? When I looked to my left and my right during the graduation ceremony, I did not have a clue who those people were.
We were in alphabetical order. I'm just like, I don't know you, and I don't know you. So one of those where you kind of regret not reaching out and just trying a different friend group or different people and just connecting with people in different ways. It doesn't always have to be brotherhoods or sisterhoods, and it doesn't always have to be best friends. Sometimes it's just good to say hello to just someone because they're in your class and may never know when you know time is right for them to kind of reach out and connect. So find the person who will be sitting next to you and during graduation and go introduce yourself. That'd be my word of wisdom for anybody, but get yourself known out there and get to know as many people in your graduating class as possible. And you probably won't hit a hundred percent, but carry that through over the next 10 to 20 years of your career. Get to know people in your graduating class until you strike the hundred percent mark.
Colman:
Awesome. Thank you very much. As the fall semester closed down, I know a lot of people will listen to that and take that to heart with their last semester coming up. So thank you for that. And thank you very much for joining the podcast. It was awesome to talk to you and learn a lot from you and hear about your experience from Holy Cross while you were a student and an athlete here, to your service in the Marine Corps, and eventually to your career at Bank of America and the community service you do with the Veterans of Foreign Wars. So thank you very much for joining it. We appreciate having you.
James:
Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. I have one more question for you. So Army, Navy, who you got this weekend?
Colman:
Army always.
James:
Oh, geez.
Colman:
Army beat Navy.
James:
Holy Cross, you're sure right?
Colman:
Holy Cross all the way, though.
James:
I didn't doubt that one for one second.
Colman:
Of course. Of course.
Maura Sweeney:
That's our show. I hope you enjoyed hearing about just one of the many ways that Holy Cross alumni have been inspired by the mission to be people for and with others.
A special thanks to today's guests and everyone at Holy Cross who has contributed to making this podcast a reality. If you or someone would like to be featured on this podcast, then please send us an email at alumnicareers.holycross.edu. If you like what you hear, then please leave us a review.
This podcast is brought to you by the Office of Alumni Relations at the College of the Holy Cross. You can subscribe for future episodes wherever you find your podcast.
I'm your host, Maura Sweeney, and this is Mission-Driven. In the words of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, "Now go forth and set the world on fire."
Theme music composed by Scott Holmes, courtesy of freemusicarchive.org.
This episode features a conversation between Joe Dulac from the class of 1990 and Ely Bueno from the class of 1998. Joe and Ely first met because they went through the New Hampshire Dartmouth Family Medicine Residency Program at Concord Hospital. They have stayed in touch since then, but reconnected in a meaningful way during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their conversation showcases how the mission of Holy Cross and the lessons learned during their time on the Hill helped to support them in living a life of meaning and purpose in service of others.
Interview originally recorded in May 2022.
---
Joe:
We were going to just stay home during a pandemic or we were going to step up and figure out... Honestly, the choice was close down the practice and maybe we'll open up in a few months or we're going to figure out a way to reopen and serve our patients.
Maura Sweeney:
Welcome to Mission-Driven, where we speak with alumni who are leveraging their Holy Cross education to make a meaningful difference in the world around them. I'm your host, Maura Sweeney, from the class of 2007, Director of Alumni Career Development at Holy Cross. I'm delighted to welcome you to today's show.
This episode features a conversation between Joe Dulac from the class of 1990 and Ely Bueno from the class of 1998. Joe and Ely first met because they went through the New Hampshire Dartmouth Family Medicine Residency Program at Concord Hospital. They have stayed in touch since then, but reconnected in a meaningful way during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This conversation offered Ely a chance to ask Joe questions to learn more about his professional journey, which included the opportunity to open and build a practice from scratch. It also gave them a chance to reflect on their past, discover shared connections and process everything they went through over the past few years. In particular, they speak about the challenges that doctors faced during the pandemic and how they lifted each other up during difficult times. Their conversation showcases how the mission of Holy Cross and the lessons learned during their time on the Hill helped to support them in living a life of meaning and purpose in service of others.
Ely:
Joe, thanks so much for agreeing to do this interview in this format. It comes from a place of deep gratitude for your professional contact and your friendship over the several years that we've known each other. And so now we get to dive in.
Joe:
Great. This is a great opportunity to meet with you and try something new, right?
Ely:
Yeah, definitely. And now, did you ever go on the spiritual exercises in Holy Cross, Joe?
Joe:
Right. Did a lot of things at Holy Cross, and so did do the one-week silent retreat in Narragansett, Rhode Island, which... it was very powerful, of course.
Ely:
Yeah.
Joe:
Yeah. Quite an experience.
Ely:
Yeah. So I also attended, and I think as we start invoking that Ignatian spirit of really the deep sense of giving of ourselves for others in contemplation, in meeting God through story, this is really a great opportunity that Maura has for us as alumni to connect and tell our story. So I'm really eager to hear about yours. And so diving right in, tell me about how you got to where you are now from Holy Cross and beyond.
Joe:
Okay, sure. Certainly, I always talk about paths being not really straight. You think you're going to go on a straight path and then path kind of zigzags. So to get to Holy Cross, so I was Chelmsford High School and was very interested in sciences and was accepted into Holy Cross for chemistry pre-med. And obviously that was challenging and stimulating. And so I went through the process there with all the pre-meds and the basic science and chemistry. And there was a time where there was a choice between being a chem major, going to chem grad school or going to med school. And so there was a time where there was some uncertainty, the path that I might take. So a lot of the professors were very supportive, really of either path. But because I was a chem major, I think they were very supportive of the chemistry track.
So I did do research in the summer with Holy Cross and with Dr. Ditzer, and enjoyed that, but still found myself interested in the pre-med track. So I applied and went through all the steps with the MCATs. Did have some struggles in my junior year, so I did have a little bit more of a crooked path after that. So I did a year of grad school. I was going to go into Georgetown, but found that Boston University had a program on medical sciences, and I got accepted from that program and into the med school there. And so my first year was doing a thesis, but I was able to take several medical school courses including gross anatomy and neurosciences and physiology. So that really helped solidify what I wanted to do in the path. And though I had a little bit of struggles in my junior year in grad school and in med school. Well, the first year of grad school, my professors had remarked that I had caught fire academically and kind of on a tear.
So the path was kind of a little bit crooked there. But once I settled in at Boston University after Holy Cross, the medical sciences just kind of took over and it's kind of a labor of love, learning and staying up late and being on call and all that. So I was at the Boston Medical Center there in Boston University, which was really interesting time because they were building the new hospital. So halfway through training, they completed the hospital there and then they crushed it down to smithereens. But in one day we basically were in the old hospital and the next day we were in the new hospital. And so that was really great training through the basic sciences at Holy Cross and experiences there. And then I was looking into residencies and as would have it, I had applied to a lot in the New England area for residencies for family medicine.
And I had gotten a scholarship in Lowell with the Mass Medical Society and John Janas and his family, one of the doctors in the family was starting the residency in Concord and Lebanon, New Hampshire. And he said, "Hey, I'm going to give you the scholarship, but maybe you should consider our program." And so I applied and matched. And so I ended up in Concord and mostly Concord and Lebanon for family medicine. And it was the very first year of the program, which probably better I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. The program was really good, but as a first kind of run through, what I didn't understand at the time was that though you're a resident, you're basically a faculty member because you're developing all the programs everywhere. Every program, every rotation was the first time they ever had a resident or any kind of training. So that was a different kind of experience as well.
Ely:
I have some questions about your residency challenges. How much did you do in the bigger hospital in Lebanon?
Joe:
I did several rotations up in Lebanon, which were great. So I did a lot of pediatrics there with Chad. So that was our big pediatric kind of connection. And then I actually did obstetrics in Augusta, Maine because at the time... I'm not sure if you're trained for OB as well, but they wanted us to be fully trained for OB, which I was. So I did an OB rotation. I made that happen in Augusta, Maine, which was really interesting, delivering babies out. It's the state capital, but it's still kind of rural actually.
And then I did also make a OB rotation in Beverly, Mass. And that was very developmental because no one had ever been there before. And then I did sports medicine, I made some sports medicine rotations in Portland, Maine. So those were interesting. And then I did put together a holistic herbal experience with Ascutney mountain and the herbalist. So that was up near the Lebanon area, but for pediatrics, I think I did a few months at Chad. So it was great being up there at that hospital too. Yeah, the Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital is a really fantastic place to train.
Ely:
Yeah. I am very proud of our family medicine residency program. By the time that I had arrived in Concord, it was exclusively at Concord Hospital, so all rotations were there. And I did high risk OB rotation in Nashua, New Hampshire, and some of the main Dartmouth residents came to our program to do some rotations or came down to Nashua to do some rotations. So that kind of relationship with other hospitals in the area were nice to be able to have established from relationships that you guys forged. So that has always been a nice part about learning in community.
Joe:
Well, I know we had touched base about that, and I remember having mixed feelings about the training and starting a new program. I remember you mentioning to me one time how you felt that the program was really excellent and that you had gotten really well-trained there. I know the training was definitely good in terms of experiences because even though it's not necessarily big city, Concord is the state capital again of New Hampshire, but still a lot of it's rural, a lot of rural type of problems. At the time, at least, I don't know how it was by the time you got there, but still a lot of patients had hadn't had access to doctors in a long time. So most of the illness that we would see as residents were actually advanced and surprising, patients with really far along illnesses that you're kind of surprised that they could just still be walking around with that situation. Yeah.
Ely:
Yes, definitely. That kind of establishing disease management and identifying severe disease was really was an important part of training. And I think, yes, Concord is a catchment area for that area. And Concord Hospital's Family Health Center is a federally qualified health center, much like where you work in East Boston currently, but there were a lot of social workers that helped. So there was definitely this sense of team effort to help engage people's health and work together. So that was a really good part. That's what I really liked about the training is that I learned from our pharmacists, from our social workers and other community health workers. So that was a good part of the training there. And it sounds like that helped you establish your career with in Dracut because you started your clinic there.
Joe:
I think all experiences eventually helped you later on for sure. So you're right, in Concord starting the residency program, I guess to some degree I wasn't scared to start a practice. So I guess there's that component of it. But though after I finished with the residency program that you also attended, then I returned back to my hometown in Chelmsford. And so when I finished, I went and had physical make sure that I also checked on my health. And so at that time I had gotten a physical in Chelmsford, the doctor that there was working with some other doctors and offered me a job in their clinic. And I said, "well, I'm just here for a physical, I don't think I want-"
Ely:
You got a job.
Joe:
Yeah, "don't think I want a whole job, but my physical must have been good."
Ely:
God bless family medicine, we do it all.
Joe:
So I did work a couple years in my hometown in Chelmsford in Drum Hill with Dr. Gamasis. And then actually I went back into New Hampshire. So when Michelle and I were married, we moved up to New Hampshire and then I worked with Wentworth-Douglass Hospital doing family medicine. And at that time, certainly most of the career up until that point and even after was fall spectrum. So when I worked in Chelmsford, it was inpatient medicine, outpatient medicine, ICU care, the rehabs, home care. So it was a lot. And so we would admit patients to the hospital, we would follow them and also do ICU care, and that was very satisfying. But it's a different world than it certainly is now in terms of, I suppose, expectations, acuity, the length of stay. I don't think it's even possible to do both now, but we did.
And so I did that up in Concord and then actually we put a hospitalist program in there, which was actually very controversial, and then we ended up just transitioning to outpatient medicine. So then in 2007, I actually came back down to the area of Merrimack Valley with Saints Medical Center. They were near and dear to my heart because I had still been on staff there and they were looking to open practices and they said, "hey, can you open one of practice for us in Dracut?"
And I said, that sounds really exciting because for me as a physician, I've always enjoyed obviously seeing patients and being in different environments. But one thing that you may never have an opportunity to do is to start a practice. And as a physician, starting a practice means you can really put your own personality into it and you're not inheriting necessarily a practice that's already there, or maybe another doctor's patient with maybe their style of medicine. So that was really exciting for me to be able to do that. And so the cool part about that situation was they also wanted me to be involved in the design build of the practice, which was super exciting. I didn't know anything about architect work or designing anything. So that was really exciting. And then we opened the practice and we had no patients. Day one, no patients, which is different than a lot of scenarios. So that was exciting and scary at the same time.
Ely:
Well, the natural question now I have is how did you recruit patients?
Joe:
Gosh, that was exciting time too. So a couple things, you just never know how life's going to go. So while we were doing this project, it was supposed to start in 2007, but it was delayed. So I had left the job in New Hampshire, came down, and they said, okay, unfortunately it's going to take longer than we expected. We're going to put you at the walk-in clinic for the year that we're going to get all this project going. And that was in Lowell. So I had never done urgent care medicine, so it's a little different and exciting and somewhat scary too, actually at times. And so I did that for a year. And there was a doctor that Dr. Bousquet who was a really wonderful doctor and a friend, so he must have known his life path what it was going to be.
So he basically introduced me to so many people, so many patients. Even though he was kind of retired, they would still come to the clinic and he'd do kind of a primary care situation for them and then he would introduce them to me. And so I wasn't even really kind of aware of that was what was happening. And then so when I opened the practice, I did have actually a core of patients, which was really nice.
And then we just did a lot of different things. So we went to every possible event that they had. So we went to job fairs where they wanted medical people. We went to the old home day in Dracut. I went to the Dracut baseball night, the comedy night, the fundraisers, whatever just to meet people. So that summer was really interesting. So we had no patients and then we slowly developed patients. I just basically stayed on a call every day, which wasn't as bad as it sounds, but when you have a startup practice, it's kind of neat to be on call all the time because then you're connecting with the patients very, very well. And then we had excellent people. So basically, there were three of us. So the three of us basically started the start of the office. So it was kind of exciting times. Yeah.
Ely:
That is quite a journey and a lot of legwork goes into building a practice in terms of just building the relationships you had with Dr. Bousquet. And so I am curious though, just as much as you were really involved in the community, if you can talk about it, how did it impact the way you and your family were developing? How did that balance work with being on call all the time and having all these obligations with work? How did you-
Joe:
It worked out in some ways. So though at the time, and actually still now, so we live way up in almost near Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but the practice was in Dracut, but again, this is kind of how crooked lines work and nothing's ever kind of straightforward. So we're both from that area. So she's from Lowell, I'm from Chelmsford, so we have family there. So though it was challenging in some ways to be here and there, it also was doable because for instance, her mom lives there. Her mom lives right down the street. And then my parents live in Chelmsford, and then my brothers live in Nashua and Chelmsford. So I think if it was a different location, it probably wouldn't have worked, but I could check on her mom, I can check on my parents, I can see my brothers. So that was nice.
And then we could stay there. We could stay there on the night or the weekend. So that worked out really well. And then starting a practice also meant that I had flexibility because I could tell patients to come at seven o'clock in the morning, they could call me. So there was a lot of flexibility and that allowed me to have time to coach baseball and soccer and flag football. And so I guess it just kind of worked out because I guess you wanted it to, if you wanted it to work out. There were times it was hard. So I coached a lot of baseball, and so I even started sometimes at 6:00 AM and then would try to complete by early afternoon and then kind of rush home and then run some baseball drills, run the practices or the games or whatever.
So I guess it just eventually worked out. But I think having some creativity in it and then having it be my own entity was really exciting. You have a lot of ownership in it and you can make things work, I suppose. And I really enjoyed having a personal connection to the patients that allows them to tell me that the schedule doesn't work for them, for instance, and they need something, and I can say, well, why don't you just come in at 7:30 and I'll do your physical then, things like that, which is to me is very, very satisfying 'cause the patient obviously needs certain things and I can know what those are. And then having some flexibility allows you to meet that need and you feel like, okay, that's why I'm actually here.
Ely:
Yes.
Joe:
Yeah.
Ely:
Well... you did... you say... it's amaze... I love hearing about this story and it's just different than mine. I also had a zigzaggy kind of path to medicine. But what I really am getting the sense of, Joe, is that you worked really hard to create your network, your family, really, work family, and then you really worked hard with your wife to build a network and a team that supported both of you, all of you. And if we don't really have a supporting team around us, it just can't work. And that's really a wonderful thing that you had and have currently. But I can imagine the shift in the culture of medicine and the way it's been managed provides some challenges now too. How have the rules changed around you in terms of management?
Joe:
Those are really great questions. And I guess it's easy to just gloss over the past and think, okay, gosh, everything was just really rosy, but it's not, it's not always rosy. So currently I think I'm way more satisfied than probably I have been in maybe in a long time. And I think some of that is because, like you were mentioning about working with people or networking, I think a lot of it is because the other doctor in the practice and also another doctor that also is there, we worked together to create the systems. Again, not to maybe speak poorly about systems, but we were in systems thinking, this is not really kind of what we're thinking or this is not actually functioning how we want it to function. Oh, okay, so you're feeling the same way as me and you're feeling the same way. And then, okay, let's express that.
So we actually met a lot. It's changed even over the COVID, but we met a lot as doctors to talk about what we thought about medicine, what we thought about and how things should go, and then why it was or wasn't at that point. So I think at some point we just became leaders of our own own destiny. Now that doesn't always come easy. Sometimes you got to fight for that and sometimes it just works out. Certainly to your point, and I've kind of learned this kind of the hard way over time, I think joining forces with people is way more effective than just being the only person that maybe is complaining about something or that wants something to change. If you have two or three people that you work well with and you talk about things and you actually make sense, it's going to go good places, right?
Ely:
Agreed.
Joe:
Hopefully.
Ely:
Yes.
Joe:
Hopefully.
Ely:
Well, collaboration always brings some good fruits. And I would have to say, I really felt like over COVID, as we progress in this age of COVID, I'll just say it's really the pandemic continues, let's remind each other, and-
Joe:
It is continuing.
Ely:
... it continues. But I feel like throughout COVID, I would often send a little message out to you in a way that helped me process what was going on. And the confusion about how we were operating or guidelines, miscommunications or communications about certain guidelines that were changing daily and they still really are, but I felt like having someone to vent about stuff that was changing was very helpful. So I again want to thank you for that. And I think that it helped me just advocate for what was going around in my situation. So thank you for that.
Joe:
Yeah, I'm glad that we connected because though there were three doctors in my practice, there was a time where we were either not working in the office at all or we were all remote and not really even seeing each other. And then at some point, yeah, there was an isolation, even though the physicians and medical staff. And so I think though it feels like I helped you, you secretly helped me kind of realize that I was doing some of the right things or thinking of the right things or I wasn't kind of off base thinking about the same things that you were thinking. And I may have told you yeah, you're right. But I might have also been secretly questioning it too. So I think, like you said, kind of connecting is definitely powerful. And I can't even take credit for all of that because though I was doing the family medicine in Dracut, I was also blessed to be a part of the East Boston clinic and some of the doctors there are also very amazing and they do different things.
And so one of the doctors I worked with there, he gets deployed for disasters. And so he had gotten actually deployed from our pediatric kind of practice there to the very, very first COVID response unit in California when they had the cruise ship and they had 300 patients and they had no place to put these people. Kim and his crew went out there. So he had already been in the thick of it. I think that was December maybe 2019 or something. So he had already been in the thick of it and he came back and then I just remember learning so much from him and then thinking, okay, you have to be organized, you do have to have protocols, and you do need certain things. You need PPE, you need testing, and whether you can get those things or not, or if people are going to support you, you actually do need it.
So advocating for those things, super important. And maybe you couldn't get everything you wanted. We couldn't get any N95 masks, but the other doctor that was in the practice had had the forethought of buying them. So we actually bought our own. And they weren't that great really, but they worked. And then, strangely enough, we were able to repair them. So I actually did a lot of glue gunning for several months of the masks because I didn't have another one. So it's kind of exciting in some ways to make things work, right?
Ely:
Yes. And being in medicine during the pandemic really made us either just dig our heels in and say, we're staying, we've got this, we have to do this, we have to do something. Whether it is in actually facing COVID patients in the hospital or out in the field, so to speak, in outpatient field of we have to deliver care, whether that it was telemedicine or in office eventually, and how we're we going to be able to do that and getting those PPE, for those listening, personal protective equipment.
I think now we probably know that that's probably colloquial more so than just a medical term, but yeah, we have come a long way. And then to really sit and talk with you now about, man, that was some tough times over the last couple of years specifically. I'm listening to your story. I'm really curious and very enthralled with your development of your practice, but also just knowing what we have shared together in our health system with what we went through in the last two years. That was a lot. And it's still really tough. So I'm glad we're, we're still going, but it is difficult. Are you feeling the same way about that?
Joe:
Well, it's very much a people profession and it's a caring profession, and I think we get energy off of each other. So your excitement, enthusiasm, and even your positive feedback helps to really motivate me and other people. And so I think that was one of the really exciting things about the pandemic. Sure, I could probably look back and have a lot of mixed feelings about different things, but I think one of the things that was really amazing was the administration kind of apparatus really froze up. And the clinical people, we basically had to rise up because it was either we were going to just stay home during the pandemic or we were going to step up and figure out... Honestly, the choice was close down the practice and maybe we'll open up in a few months or we're going to figure out a way to reopen and serve our patients.
So that was the choice, and that was really the clinical leadership. A hundred percent. We even developed how we were going to screen patients and then for the limited testing initially what we were going to do. And then as testing became more available, what were we going to do, what questions we were going to ask patients, when were they going to be permitted in the office?
All that stuff we had to figure out and then we just did it. So thought that was really exciting actually. So I guess to answer your question, compared to sometimes when you feel really just maybe you're not making a difference, this period has kind of felt like more like we're making a difference. So things do kind of get tiring, the electronic medical systems can get tiring and charting, and there are some mundane things. And I think also the other thing is the more that we're in charge, I think of the healthcare system, and even simple things like how we're going to do our schedule, it's really empowering. I guess that's some of the things that came out of it.
Ely:
Thank you for that perspective, because that learning by doing is precisely why I chose family medicine. And really the impetus for me to be just actively doing in medicine was why I then pursued a career in medicine. And so just to be reminded of that is exactly what we are doing. This is our calling to do it, and we are here to serve. And as difficult as it is, that's what we do and we do it the best. And yes, leadership comes in all form, including administration, and there's certainly guidelines and rules that we may admonish at times, but really it's an honor and our privilege to be able to help others and live out the dream we all had of becoming physicians and being able to realize that in the work that we do. So thanks.
Joe:
You're welcome. And it did really feel like patients really did need us. So for two years, there were times where we're running all kinds of tests for coronavirus, then helping patients with, are you going to be able to work? And for how long? And who's going to write those letters? And then when can you go back and well, maybe you're not actually doing all that well, so maybe we should run x-rays and labs and send you to the hospital and now working with some of these other therapeutics and whatnot. So yeah, I think there's a lot of components where the family medicine, you can really just jump right in. Yeah, you're right. And then you're also right too, where it's not all rosy. There are a lot of things that can get in between those things that we really want to do for patients and how we want to feel about our calling.
Ely:
It's not all rosy, but then again, really, I welcome the challenge. If I had to go back into where our education had formed us at Holy Cross, the challenges that we had in terms of asking the question, and this is really for me, formed from this first year program that is now the Montserrat program that I was part of. But this question of how then shall we live in this world of COVID there are constant changes and rules, how then shall we live and then dot, dot, dot as physicians, as humans, as a mother, as a father. So I think it really is a unique way of looking at where we are through the lens of having a Holy Cross Jesuit education.
Joe:
Absolutely. There are so many experiences during the time there that totally prepares you for a career in medicine, in family medicine, or even just caring for people. There's so many things. The list is just endless of events and experiences for sure. I had what they call a SPUD... suburban, I'm not sure of all the acronyms there.
Ely:
Program for Urban Development something.
Joe:
We had so much fun, we did so many different things. And I just remember taking him to the... I think it's the pub there where there's the bowling alley. We had a bowling alley on campus, we used to do that a lot and other fun events. But yeah, there was just a lot of good experiences. One of the things that I think was also really excellent too was I went for one of the breaks at the Appalachia Mountain. I don't know if that was going on when you were there. So I went to Kentucky Mountain Housing and that was I think about 10 days. And so that was really amazing experience. So not only were we serving others, and then we were building some houses up in Appalachia in Kentucky, but we had to work together as a team.
So that was probably one of the early experiences of really team building. So we had several vans, I don't even know how many were in each van, 10 or 12 people in the van. And basically we were responsible for the budget and getting all our stuff and then getting there. So we had to meet in Virginia or something and then continue on. So I just remember we had to decide who was going to drive and when and what shifts, and then how we were going to do our meals and who was going to cook it and when and who was going to clean up, and then who was going to do what kind of jobs on the site there.
So that was really amazing experience. And then of course, interacting with people in Appalachia and helping them build houses and learning about their life experiences was, I think that's obviously a really amazing experience. And it's very, very similar to being a physician, except not building a house typically, but you're interacting with people and connecting with them where they are. So that was definitely a formative experience and I'm really grateful I was able to do that.
Ely:
What I want to ask you, because now you're in a position of having one of your kids going to start at Holy Cross, do you have any certain expectations for her experience at Holy Cross?
Joe:
Yeah, no, thank you for mentioning that. Yeah, Olivia will be a freshman this fall, and she plans on the bio pre-med track or health professions track. And so yeah, super excited for her. I'm overjoyed. For both of my children, I often brought them to different Holy Cross events. And for Olivia, we did the move in together. Well, not her move in, but we helped the students move in about five years ago. And then we've done several Holy Cross cares days, and then we've gone to reunions or football games or things. So I was always hopeful that she would have an interest and since I've been there a million years ago, the campus, it changed so much. They've just added so many wonderful things and buildings and upgraded just everything. So I was more than excited for her to consider it.
And I'm really hopeful that she has a lot of the experiences that I had or even more. And so what I had wanted for her is not just go someplace and just do science, just be in the lab, just doing science by yourself, with your head down. I really wanted for her to have a real well-rounded experience and really develop other parts of her person as well. And I really wanted that for her. So I'm really hopeful that she sees it that way too.
And she's very interested in the science building there. So we had to go look during all of her tours, specifically at the science buildings, even though lots of campuses in the United States are nice, the science building may not be nice. It may not be where they focus. So we went there and the newly kind of renamed Fauci Center definitely looked like it had gotten a lot of attention and would be a good place to learn. So yeah, I'm just really hopeful that she may find experiences like I did, or even different ones, even different ones.
I was on the campus ministry there. And I found that to be really amazing, the 10 o'clock masses. And I walked on the football team for two years and was in a great dorm and had a lot of great experiences and a lot of great memories and friendships. Yeah, so I was hoping that she would get a lot of those experiences. So can I ask you about your recent career situation?
Ely:
Oh, sure.
Joe:
Because you're making some changes.
Ely:
Yes. So I would have to say the challenges of COVID and the challenges of parenthood, specifically motherhood, have put my focus on how to best be at home and do the work that I do. So being in the office, in the clinic, taking care of patients is truly rewarding. And I wouldn't change the opportunity for the world. But moving forward, I think I needed to step out of that in clinic role.
And so now I've chosen a path to do telemedicine, and I'm very excited about developing my role as a communicator on the phone or by video and listening to patients. And that role won't change, but how I listen and how I engage with patients will be a little bit different and I'll have to hone in those skills. So I am looking forward to it. And I have a few weeks off before then.
Joe:
Well, I'm excited for you. So we've almost followed the same pathway, but now you're going a different pathway, because we both went to Holy Cross and we both went to New Hampshire Dartmouth residency and we both were urgent care in Merrimack Valley and Primary Care. But now you're going a different paths.
Ely:
Yes. Well, the zigzags of our paths have crossed many times in one way or another, and I'm sure they'll continue to cross, and hopefully that will continue.
Joe:
No, I think it's good 'cause I think our energy kind of feeds off of each other and our experiences or even just sometimes questioning kind of feeds off each other. And I think it's really positive. And I find that as I'm getting older and I actually think about what makes me tick, I think interacting with doctors and nurse practitioners and physicians assistants in the course of doing your work is extremely rewarding. And I really enjoy it.
And so I do a lot of work in East Boston and a lot of times in the emergency room, and there's several doctors or some doctors and nurse practitioners, and I never really can really put my finger on why I enjoyed it, but I just really enjoyed being together with four or five doctors. It's amazing. You can talk to someone who has major differences in their life experiences or the clinical experiences, and you can just talk to them like right there, hey, I'm doing this for this patient, and what do you do?
It's just amazing wealth. It really can help to develop just your satisfaction. But I do want to mention something, and I don't really know how to say it, but I think you brought up and there are, I think, unique challenges to being a male physician and a female physician. And I think with COVID and the additional responsibilities, it's really complicated.
You could speak to this more than I, but I think as a female physician or a female nurse, you're also expected to take care of your kids when they're sick, which they're sick a lot with the COVID or not COVID or finding out if they have COVID. So what I've also observed is that the intensity of the responsibility is huge for women in clinical positions, and COVID just has made that so much more apparent and intense. So I understand maybe why you're making some changes there, but obviously you know more than I how that all works.
Ely:
I really appreciate the acknowledgement of the role of mothers in medicine and fathers have equally distinct roles in managing family life. So for some reason, for me, it has fallen on me to really be at home when they are sick or in quarantine. And it's something that I don't obviously mind doing, I love my children, and I just want to be able to show up for my family, myself and my patients equally as strong.
And in my most recent role, I wasn't always feeling like I could do that and for one way or another. And it's not the fault of the system or the role itself, it just happened to play out that way. However, I did find some agency in looking at other options and voila, COVID opened a lot of doors to telemedicine and other opportunities for physicians to practice. So that was a fringe benefit, if I could even say a benefit of the pandemic was some doors that opened. So I felt enough agency to be able to walk through that door, and that was not because I was suffering, that was because there was a lot of strength that came from learning from my colleagues in my previous role. So I have a lot of good feelings for where I came from and a lot of excitement for where I'm going.
Joe:
I know, I think it's really wonderful and fantastic, and I'm glad that you acknowledged the unique pressures or stresses that you've felt 'cause I don't think they're unique to yourself. And so I'm glad that you've articulated that. And what I always think is by the time you've become a doctor and you've done all the amazing steps to get there, and then you're connecting with patients, to feel like for some reason you can't do that work because of whatever, because of schedule, because you want to also be there for your family or whatever systems things, and to think that maybe someone might actually leave the career altogether, it's really upsetting to me because it's usually the people that are the most caring and connected because you've given out so much of your energy and you just realize it's not working out. So kudos to you to try to figure out a way to keep all that amazing energy, like caring for patients. So I'm glad that you've figured out a path.
Ely:
Thank you.
Joe:
Yeah, it's exciting. Yeah, because I know you'll be back doing family medicine at some point in person, that's why I'm saying that.
Ely:
Yes. Well, my roots in community are very strong. And so to really hear your story of community building, it restores my faith in the progress of medicine and in the intensity of how we serve each other. So again, I cannot say thank you enough.
Joe:
Well, thank you to you too.
Ely:
The way I would love to close the interview is to say one thing that you are really excited about the future of family medicine. And I think I'm excited about the continued relationship building and the connection with colleagues as well as patients because if we are stronger as providers, as physicians, then I think that really only encourages our patients to become stronger and to have their agency to take care of their health. And really healthy communities, healthy families are what the drive to family medicine is. And so I'm really excited about that, that relationship is going to continue and get even stronger. How about you?
Joe:
I think you're right about that. And in the perspective of my path is that training in Boston in the '90s, family medicine was not at all desirable. And so you had to actually leave the city at the time to even seek out the specialty. But in time now, family medicine's very important everywhere, including in the city, including at the academic centers. And with my family medicine background, working in the ER, I do work with the pediatric group in Boston. I do family medicine in the clinic. I've also done urgent care and I feel equally at home in all those settings. And that's really nice. And I think connecting with the patients, I do feel like they actually do need us to know about a lot of things there. There's so much more complexity to health, and it's good to be able to do that over a wide range of health.
And the other thing I like too about family medicine is we don't always have to make health issues always necessarily bad. We can talk about them as things that are opportunities to improve and maybe even opportunities to work on holistic health maintenance. So yeah, I think there is a lot of positivity to the future. We're going through an electronic medical record transition to Epic, which was really challenging. But I've used Epic in other locations and I'm finding that it, to some level is restoring my joy of medicine because the system is very good and allows me to actually complete functions rather than having the functions kind of dictate my whole day. So I think that hopefully technology will also help, at least the technology part that should be in place to help us. So I'm optimistic hopefully.
Ely:
That's a wonderful place to be optimistic and also carries us into the future.
Maura Sweeney:
That's our show. I hope you enjoyed hearing about just one of the many ways that Holy Cross alumni have been inspired by the mission to be people for and with others.
A special thanks to today's guests and everyone at Holy Cross who has contributed to making this podcast a reality. If you or someone would like to be featured on this podcast, then please send us an email at alumnicareers.holycross.edu. If you like what you hear, then please leave us a review.
This podcast is brought to you by the Office of Alumni Relations at the College of the Holy Cross. You can subscribe for future episodes wherever you find your podcast.
I'm your host, Maura Sweeney, and this is Mission-Driven. In the words of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, "Now go forth and set the world on fire."
Theme music composed by Scott Holmes, courtesy of freemusicarchive.org.
Interview originally recorded in March 2022.
---
Thomas:
You can't just build something because you care about it, right? At the end of the day, there has to be a problem and you have to be able to solve that problem for people. And so I think you get lucky when you find a problem that you experience personally, that you also care a lot about in trying to solve it.
Maura:
Welcome to Mission-Driven, where we speak with alumni who are leveraging their Holy Cross education to make a meaningful difference in the world around them. I'm your host, Maura Sweeney from the class of 2007, director of Alumni Career Development at Holy Cross. I'm delighted to welcome you to today's show.
Maura:
In this episode, we hear from two alumni, Thomas Cotter from the class of 2017 and Brendan Quinn from the class of 2006. Thomas and Brendan met while Thomas was a student at Holy Cross and their relationship has grown from there. Mentor, fellow Crusader, friend and business partner are all titles that can be used to describe their relationship with one another. Their professional journeys converge thanks to the app INDX, a startup co-founded by Thomas and funded by Brendan. Conor Jocelyn from the class of 2023 joins Thomas and Brendan to learn about their journeys through Holy Cross and the circumstances that led them to collaborate on this startup. Champions of a Holy Cross education, Thomas and Brendan are passionate about promoting lifelong learning. Through INDX, they hope to channel their energy and create a product that fosters learning, discovery and growth for all. True entrepreneurs at heart, they show us what's possible when you take a problem and focus your efforts on finding a solution.
Conor:
So hey Thomas, hey Brendan, how are you guys doing today?
Brendan:
Hey, Conor. Good to be with you.
Thomas:
Doing well. Thanks for doing this, Conor.
Conor:
Yeah, thank you for joining us. So Brendan, how about we start off with you? So could you please tell me a little bit about your background, maybe where you are from, your family life, and then also maybe tell us about when you were searching for schools, what convinced you to choose Holy Cross?
Brendan:
Yeah. So I am class of 2006, to date myself just right off the bat. Was born in the Bay Area. My folks were in the service, both in the Navy. So I lived in California until I was about four, moved to New England, Southeastern Connecticut more specifically, and grew up there predominantly. Started Holy Cross in 2002. And then after Holy Cross, went on to spend 15 years in financial services at one organization called Silicon Valley Bank. And we'll get into kind of what I'm up to now later on, I'm sure. In terms of what attracted me to Holy Cross, I really think it was like there was an intimacy about it. When I came to visit, I was definitely looking at a number of schools in varying shapes and sizes. And I just had that there was like a intangible feeling about Holy Cross and the community that it embodied that was just very attractive to me.
Brendan:
And so it was a pretty easy decision. I actually did early decision, was able to convince some people that I might be a good fit. So it worked out and then it's been, I would put it in the top five most important decisions in my life in terms of where I am today. So there's not a day that goes by that I'm not grateful for Holy Cross and my time there and all the relationship that have extended from that one of which being Thomas.
Conor:
Yeah. I had a very similar experience going to Holy Cross. I applied ED as well, and I was very attracted just to all aspects of it. I mean, it's a great place. Now Thomas, could you also share a little bit about your background, where you're from and then why you decided to attend Holy Cross?
Thomas:
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks. Conor and Brendan, and I know each other pretty well at this point and I didn't know you were from the Bay Area, Brendan. So I just learned something right there. So that's awesome. I'm from Acton, Massachusetts. So not too far away from Holy Cross, about a 45 minute drive. A little different experience in terms of how I ended up there though. I originally went to Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, where I played football, got some concussions and knew I might want to transfer. And I only looked at a few schools after my freshman or kind of in mid flight of my freshman year to look at transferring. And ironically with Holy Cross, was the first school I ever toured. My mom dragged me, I think as a sophomore or a junior to just go see what a college campus looked like.
Thomas:
And I always liked it, but when I was originally looking at a school I was out of high school, I just knew I wasn't going to be playing on any of Holy Cross's sports teams. So kind of brought it out of my mind, but I did an interview and looked at the campus and at that point had been in college for a little while. So I feel like I was able to make a pretty informed decision. And the liberal arts education, I was really interested in Spanish and economics and Holy Cross had great programs. And then the smaller school community and liberal arts education really attracted me, which is what brought me there.
Thomas:
And I'm super appreciative because transferring can be a bit of a challenge to overcome, because you're coming in fresh. A lot of people have their friends and everyone about Holy Cross was super useful and I'll throw a little jab because my grandfather went to BC, but BC actually let me in for transferring, but wasn't going to offer housing. So I'm always even extra appreciative of Holy Cross for their kindness to transfer students.
Conor:
Oh, awesome. Happy to hear that. So Thomas, I guess we'll ask you this question. During your time on the hill, what were some of the offices, clubs or extracurricular activities that you were involved in and were there any specific experience, classes or professors at Holy Cross that really set you up for success in the professional world?
Thomas:
Absolutely. No, it's a really good question. As far as extracurriculars, I experimented with a lot of things. I was the co-chair of the Sales Club. I was in the Finance Club, which is actually how Brendan and I ended up meeting, which is a funny story that we can probably pop into with one of those awkward networking calls that everyone tells you to do that thankfully has turned into a friendship, I guess almost lifelong friendship at this point, which is a funny story that I guess those calls actually work, which is nice to see.
Thomas:
I think one professor that stands out for me is a professor in the economics department, Professor Boyle. I had her for three or four economics classes and she was very rigorous, but she did a really good job of I think leaning on both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of economics, which is what I really liked about it. I also had a lot of really good professors in the Spanish department through that lens. But to your last question on I think how it set up for professional success, my worldview right now retrospectively is that the faster you can learn something new and apply it, the better off you're going to be. In our world things change so quickly that nothing is very static and it's very much a cliche with liberal arts education that you're learning how to learn, but I think there's a lot of truth and foundation to it.
Thomas:
And so I think my overall experience kind of being able to take in a lot of information, practice thinking for yourself and then applying it, has been the most impactful thing early on in my career because going back, I'm a 2017 grad. The world has changed a lot since then. If I were to be just looking at very specific skills, I think they would've already evolved. Like some of the software skills that I learned at Holy Cross I don't use anymore. Because even though softwares can be out of date, not just one small example. And I think that Holy Cross provided that foundation to continue to learn and adapt, which is really important.
Conor:
Awesome. Thank you very much. Brendan, I'm assuming you guys probably have pretty similar experiences at Holy Cross with all the different classes and professors, but anything different that stands out to you as something that really impacted your success in the professional world?
Brendan:
Yeah, I would definitely echo a lot of what Thomas just said there, particularly around the, just like the foundation that a liberal arts education affords. I was also an economics major. I mean, there are so many professors that influenced me, motivated me, touched me in different ways. But the one that actually stands, there's two, one is Professor Mosher who at the time was an adjunct professor and he was my indoctrination into economics at all. I was a pre-med biology major coming into Holy Cross, having grown up in a family, a medical family. And after my freshman year, I was starting to realize that that was not the path that I was going on. And so I was in a lot of ways back to square one in terms of my major and direction I wanted to take.
Brendan:
My forthcoming professional career and Professor Mosher was, he just had a very lightness about him. He was very, he was a great teacher, a great instructor, very great relationship builder. And so like that, and then kind of marrying that with just my, I have a very macro way that I think and operate, which aligned very nicely with the macroeconomics curriculum that I was being exposed to at that time. And so it just, things clicked. And then further on down the road, Professor Rask was one, took multiple classes with her. I just remember her being again, another just incredible teacher, very careful about the way that she did not try in one size fits all curriculum. She was very customized in her way that she was able to explain different concepts to different people that are coming from things from a different point of view.
Brendan:
So tying it back to the liberal arts, which I do think is above any specific vertical of subject matter that you're studying, knowing how to think, learning how to make better decisions with better information while also acknowledging for a lot of reasons that Thomas outlined that you're never going to have perfect information continues to serve me every day. And so also like Thomas, I would say that there's very few things in my, like the actual tactical part of my study at Holy Cross that I feel like I'm drawing upon every day. But the foundation of the liberal arts education in like helping you learn how to think and make better decisions, that's going to be a lifetime of value for me personally. So for that I'm grateful.
Conor:
Yeah. I think that's the beauty of the liberal arts and going to a school like Holy Cross. A few weeks back, I was talking to an alumni and he said something that really stood out to me. He said that like the difference between a Holy Cross student and students that go to large, massive school undergrad business programs, we are completely separated from them because we learn so many different skills. We learn how to problem solve. We learn how to analyze. We learn how to critically analyze. We learn how to read, write. We learn how to present in front of a big crowd. Now that just separates us from so many different students when applying for jobs and internships in the business world.
Conor:
And I think that's something that really stood out to me as something very impactful for people's careers as a Holy Cross student. So that leads me to my next question. Brandon, our motto at the Ciocca Business Center is major in anything and succeed in business. So can you speak a little bit about, well, I guess both of you, can you guys both speak a little bit about your economics and your accounting majors and the impact that it has had on your professional career? So Brandon, we can start with you and then we'll head over to Thomas.
Brendan:
Yeah, I would say in terms of my economics understanding in the context of my career, I think what it did was in a little bit more of a specialized way still gave me this foundational understanding of how to think, how to analyze, how to communicate, how to make decisions with imperfect information. Economics is like there's an academic side to economics, but there's also just a practical side of it as well. And so you can't model everything. And so yes, models can help you create a map of reality or the world, but it's not the territory, right? It's a model and it's a framework and it's one that can be utilized to give you kind of broad strokes, directional understanding of things. But specific to the taking that into the real world, you also have to acknowledge that every model is broken, to the upside, to the downside. It's a guide. It's not the answer.
Brendan:
And so I feel like that with the backdrop of liberal arts education, like I walked out of Holy Cross into my job in financial services at Silicon Valley Bank with that appreciation, probably more so than a lot of my peers that came from more focus financial undergraduate degrees. And in the short term, I definitely had a feeling of, it's not like imposter syndrome, but I felt like I was playing catch up on some of the more technical aspects of my job, but that goes away. Right? Every job, you're going to get technically trained up based on the particular roles and responsibilities of that. And then ultimately where the competition happens, if you will, is at the more foundational levels of how do you think, how do you communicate? How you read, write, make decisions, that's the stuff where liberal arts education and more specifically Holy Cross's version of that, I think sets new graduates up for longer term success relative to their peers.
Conor:
Yeah. I absolutely agree. That's great points. Thank you. Yeah. Thomas, can you talk about your economics major and the impact it had on your career?
Thomas:
Yeah. I think I'll just build on what Brendan said or even what... It's funny, you said in chatting with that alum, Conor, a leg up to maybe more traditional skills, but I think Brendan added a nuance to it that's really important, that tying back to the first thing that I said in terms of optimizing for the rate of learning, like how quickly you can apply something, knowing that the benefits aren't going to be linear. So you're not going to take one step and get one step of benefit. It can be sometimes take one step, get four steps of benefit. That sometimes you actually do feel in starting your career that you're behind on some tactical technical skill sets, right? Putting for Brandon's case like a discounted cash flow together. For me, understanding like I don't know, gross margins. I didn't directly learn that in any of my coursework, but you can fill up on a lot of that technical and tactical skills and then start to apply it with systems thinking, communication, leadership skills that I think allow people to benefit.
Thomas:
And if you think about your college education as a lifelong investment, or hopefully jump starting a lifelong full of learning new things, right? The more important thing to learn is how to learn than the concrete sand you filled in a box in a temporary place in time when you were in school. And so as I think about the economics major, like I said, I spent a lot of time in the Spanish department. For example, I studied abroad and Buenos Aires. A lot of those experiences, I think set up to echo what Brendan was saying, the ability to learn new things with like a very common set of skills that can allow you to be successful in different environments.
Thomas:
And I think that that would be something I'd pass on to all Holy Cross students that even that first job out of school should be viewed through the lens of just the first step. Right. And even if there is a bit of a learning curve on understanding something super specific to whatever industry or function that you're in, that leaning into those other skills that are lifelong can kind of help you make that something that's more exponential.
Conor:
Yeah. Thank you. I absolutely agree. Obviously, all of these skills that we learn from the liberal arts education helps to succeed in the business world. But personally, I also think that a big part of it is also the Holy Cross alumni network and everything that they do for us. So how has the Holy Cross alumni network supported you, Brendan?
Brendan:
Oh, man. I don't even know where to begin because there are so many examples of it. Look, when I was coming out of school, I was doing a lot of meetings. I was doing a lot of coffees and phone calls and whatnot with quite literally just like cold inbound alums and crusaders want to help crusaders. Right? So it's like there's an element of just being part of this community. And if you're an alum, you remember those people that helped you. And so it's almost like a pay it back, pay it forward kind of thing. Another one I'll just say, and I'm not going to, I don't want to flatter Thomas too much, but I will say the alumni network establishing the relationship that we have now and that one being a lifelong friendship first and foremost, and also is flourishing into a number of other dynamics to our relationship that spanned the personal professional continuum.
Brendan:
And so, I mean, it is the alumni network in a lot of ways that brought us together. And I would say, yeah, Thomas is going to shake his head at me. But I actually look up to Thomas in so many ways in his entrepreneurial spirit, his courage, his commitment, his ability to go from the macro to the micro. And so this, the Holy Cross alumni network, you are engaging with it right now, like the potential and the vibrancy of it. And the encouragement I would give as Thomas was alluding to it before is like you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. So leverage it, take advantage of it.
Brendan:
As alum, we want to help. And so don't be afraid to reach out, but it is on the individual student to take that first step be proactive, because there's a lot of Holy Cross grads every year. We don't know who needs what and what, where, so it's like people need to come and like have an ask or have a, they want to have a conversation or whatever it is, but just demystifying the fear of taking that first step. Because it's pretty good once you... The water's pretty warm in the alumni network.
Conor:
Absolutely. I think every person I've talked to in the networking field has been amazing, an amazing experience, and they're so willing to help, which is awesome. Thomas, do you have similar experiences with the Holy Cross alumni network? How have they impacted your-
Thomas:
Yeah. Well, I mean, first off, thanks Brendan for the overly flattering words. But I mean, I think I can probably answer it just through a story. Right. And it kind ties into how Brendan and I even know each other. But I was terrified my senior year of not having a good job. So I was economics major thinking about finance. I think a lot of Holy Cross students think about that path because it's something their friends are looking at. There's a lot of really good relationships there. And I had no idea what else was out there in the world. And so I had lots and lots and lots and lots of networking calls, reaching out to people, asking about it, those kind of things and a lot of people were super helpful. And a lot of times I didn't help myself in terms of like really thinking about what I wanted, what I like to do and what gave me energy.
Thomas:
And so with Brendan, it's funny how it happened was he was doing a Holy Cross Finance Bootcamp. I think one of 40 people we followed up, but what I remember about our first networking conversation is it didn't feel forced, right? There was overlap and commonality and things. I think we ended up talking for 20, 30 minutes past the time that we allotted. A lot of it not about working at Silicon Valley Bank at the time, which is what I was thinking in a very short term way. Long story short, I didn't end up going to work for Silicon Valley Bank. I interviewed a few times, went to different places. I ended up going to grad school and then in technology consulting, but Brendan and I maintained our relationship. Right. Out of the maybe hundreds of calls we've had, I've kept in touch with maybe three to five people.
Thomas:
And then Brendan the most out of all of that. And it's super non-linear in terms of the benefit of that. Like Brendan said, friendship, a lot of professional advice. Brendan is an investor in what I am now working on now. And so if you look super short term around the alumni network even, if you're just like, "I want a job from this conversation," I did not get a job from the first time that Brendan and I chatted. But four years later, Brendan was the first, one of the first people to encourage me to work on INDX, which is the company I'm trying to build right now and continues to be one of our biggest supporters.
Thomas:
So I think that's one other thing I'd tie back is it's not a temporary access point. I think when you think about an alumni network, I think it's a great opportunity to build relationships that can be lifelong. And Brendan graduated in 2006, I graduated in 2017. We're both now working in the world. There's no difference, right? We have similar interests, a lot of overlap and a lot of support for one another. And I think I wouldn't have had that opportunity without that entry point through Holy Cross and then you can kind of take the rest from there.
Conor:
Awesome. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Yeah. So Thomas, I guess we'll kind of leeway into this question about current students looking for jobs and internships. Obviously it can be very stressful managing with school and extracurriculars and stuff. So could you tell me a little bit about your experience and maybe provide some advice for students looking for their first internship or their first job?
Thomas:
Yeah, absolutely. I'll tell you what I think now, and then I can also frame it with what I actually did, which like a lot of advice is kind of how it goes, right? You learn it by suffering. I'll start with my own experience. I had absolutely zero idea what I wanted to do and was very... I think like a lot of Holy Cross students wanted something that would be good, that would look good, that I thought I wanted. And so chased and tried a lot of things where there wasn't a ton of fit. Through that process ended up finding technology consulting, helping out companies build tech products, which I can kind of talk about a little bit later on, which is where I ultimately landed, but it was a very roundabout way. So the advice I'd give would be explore as much as possible.
Thomas:
And then when you have opportunities and have a little bit of fit, like exploit. Explore exploit is kind of the mental model I think for thinking about it. But there is an insane range of things that you can do, especially when people talk about business broadly, like that's a, obviously I think it's like the entire economy, except for a couple of preset tracks like becoming a doctor or a lawyer, where there's kind of a credentialing hoop there. So I would say try as many things as you can, try to build things, try to do things, try to do it on your own and figure out what you like, which sometimes can fall on deaf ears when you just want to know you're going to make money, know you're going to have a job when you're out of school.
Thomas:
But I think the more you can look at it as something a bit more of longer term in terms of finding fit, the better off you'll be in terms of testing that out. And I'll hand it over to Brendan on that point, because I know that his first job became many jobs within the same company and to what he's doing now. But I mean, that was definitely my experience of it.
Brendan:
Yeah. I would again, echo a lot of what Thomas just said. I had gone through while at school as I mentioned, I'd gone through a pre-career shift if you will, like being pretty tracked on being a doctor and then morphing into something more business. I always had an eye towards financial services. So coming out of school, same thing. I was looking for something that was going to look good on my resume, make some money. And with the idea that I probably actually wasn't going to be there for very long in the... I like Thomas's model around explore exploit. I would definitely... That resonates with me probably more so today than it did back then. But even back then, I kind of just thought like, okay, this is going to be a stop on the train and I'll figure it out.
Brendan:
What happened was I wound up staying at Silicon Valley Bank for 15 years, but it was not the same Silicon Valley Bank for 15 years. And it was like my job function through those 15 years, took three discreet kind of shapes and sizes, four really. So even within, while it's the same company, it was very different jobs and workflows. And I think in the end, just you got to follow the learning, follow your growth edge. If you don't feel like you're developing, particularly earlier on in your career, if you don't feel like you're developing and gaining skills and building relationships and just growing as a human, it's probably not a great fit. And that's probably... The trust your gut.
Brendan:
And that's probably the time to start, whether it's like doing some deeper work on yourself to understand where you want to be in five, 10 years and then work backwards. Or just, if you have an idea of where you want to be, then getting tactical around what the next move is. But I think it starts with, if you feel like you're everyday challenged and learning and growing and doing it with people that you enjoy being around, then that's probably a pretty good thing. And if the opposite is true, then it's probably time to start considering something else.
Thomas:
The only one quick thing I'll layer on that is I think a lot of times, and Brendan kind of gave me this idea. When you think about internships in college, it's a very formal thing. But if you think you might want to be like a product manager or help build products, try to build something. Like if you think you might want to be in finance, get one of those dummy stock trading apps and trade dummy stocks that you can talk about. If you think you might want to be in sales, go sell something, right?
Thomas:
I think one way to combine the best of the liberal arts education and giving yourself the best starting point out of school is as you have those inspirations, layering in action on top of it so that there's a learning. I think if you make what you're going to do after school something that's very hypothetical, it can be easy to kind of not encounter blind spots that you have about what that actually entails. So I think that'd be the only thing that I'd add on that. Again, I didn't do that. So I mean, this is retrospective learning, but-
Conor:
Well, thank you. I really appreciate that advice. And I know any student my age or around my age, listening to this will also very, really appreciate the advice as well. So Thomas, when looking back at your four years on the hill, what is your favorite memory about Holy Cross? I know there's probably a lot, but-
Thomas:
Yeah. I mean, I think the, I mean probably a cliche answer, but definitely the friendships and shared experiences. I'm still very close with a lot of the people that I went to Holy Cross with to, I live in Denver now. One of my very close friends lives here as well. He's still one of my very best friends from school. Relationships built with people like Brendan. I got married last summer and I think three of my groomsmen were from Holy Cross. And I think it's just those relationships and those shared experiences without being too cliche or stealing Brendan's answer.
Brendan:
Yep. I'm going to go cliche and you in fact did steal my answer. So I'm just like, yeah, it's in the end, Holy Cross's community and there's the big community that is Holy Cross at large and then we all have our micro communities that we curate while we're there. And like Thomas, most of my closest friends in life today being 16 years removed from Holy Cross are my friends from Holy Cross. And so there's countless, countless times of just like just being together, getting into a little bit of trouble, having some fun, learning a lot that you just cement these relationships for life.
Brendan:
And so it is cliche, but it's also true that the people that you're making, I mean, when you're in college, you're really becoming an adult. You're becoming a fully independent human and you're forming relationships on your own accord, full stop. And so just leaning into that and enjoying the time there, but also recognizing that it's not over after the four years. In a lot of ways, it's just beginning. And I think as an example, the relationship that Thomas and I now have is an example of how that can continue.
Conor:
I agree. I've made so many valuable relationships so far at Holy Cross and I haven't even graduated yet. So I'm excited to see who else I can meet and generate relationships with. So we're going to ask one more question about Holy Cross and then we'll get into INDX and the app. So how has the Holy Cross mission influenced your work? Thomas, you want to take the first one?
Thomas:
For sure. I mean, I can start with that. I know we'll talk a little bit more about what I'm working on now, but I think, thinking about men or women for others, the thing I'd layer on top of that I think as it relates to how I think about what I work on is solving problems that matter, I guess, would be how I'd put it. There's an infinite amount of problems that you can chase and tackle in the world and tackling ones that you personally care about that will be beneficial for society being someone with a vocation for others. I think business is one of the best avenues to do that. If you can set up a sustainable way of solving a problem at scale, I think that's one of the best ways to have out size impact on issues that you care about.
Thomas:
And so I think we'll get more into what we're trying to build with INDX, but a lot of it's around lifelong learning or continuous learning after you leave school. It's something I'm very passionate about. It's something I think is very important. And I think that helping people continue to learn and adapt and almost own their self-learning or self-education is something that is I hope a net benefit for folks. And also something that thinking about the purpose or having a vocation that kind of comes from Holy Cross is how I think about where to spend my time and what kinds of problems that are worth solving.
Conor:
Awesome. Thank you. Brendan, how has the Holy Cross mission influenced your work?
Brendan:
Yeah, not surprisingly, a lot of the same kind of values that Thomas just shared. I would say as far as like where I'm at now, I guess the best way to characterize myself is I'm an entrepreneurial investor. But I'm also building a business myself called Can Deliver Advisors. But the ethos of everything that I do spanning my entrepreneurial activities, my investment activities is really about empowering individuals, democratizing access and opportunity to as many people as possible. In addition to just selfishly wanting this product to exist, a big reason why I am so honored to be as involved in the INDX story as I am is because of exactly what Thomas said in that, by building a product, a company, an experience for individuals that enables in this case, lifelong learning, what a gift. What a gift to the world and what an important thing to be doing in this day and age where there's a lot of just noise that's out there.
Brendan:
And being able to parse that signal from that noise, using a tool like INDX, it really, it powers down into those just foundational values that certainly Thomas and I both share around everything that we're doing is actually in service of others. So you peel back the business, the capitalist, the narrative around that, it's actually like what a tool to business aligning incentives in ways to create products, experiences for people to advance humanity. We're getting= pretty meta here, but it's a pretty inspiring thing to feel like that's what you're doing on a day in day out basis and that's what Thomas I get to do.
Conor:
Awesome. Thank you. It was so amazing to hear about both your Holy Cross experiences, but now I'd like to hear more about your company INDX and more specifically why you started it and the goals you have. Personally, I've downloaded INDX just to take a look at it and I love the app. It's awesome. And it's been very educational and eye opening, and it has allowed me to learn various new material in a multitude of different formats. And I really like the diversity of different topics that the app offers as it makes room for a variety of different lessons to be learned. So before we get into the more personal questions about INDX, can you provide the audience with a brief description of the app?
Thomas:
Yeah, for sure. In super simple terms, I like to describe it as kind of like Pinterest, but for learning. So we make it easy for you to save the podcasts, articles, videos, Twitter threads that you come across so that you can save and share it with colleagues and friends. So as you come across something seems interesting to you, you click a button, you get reminded to go back to that content. So you actually read it, watch it, listen to it, and then be able to connect with the community of people who are trying to learn about similar things and the tactical. On the higher level, more on the mission side of what we're trying to do is content creation is exploding. So there are tons of articles, videos, podcasts published every day, just the amount of content is insane.
Thomas:
And so one of the theses we have is that it's going to need some curation and community for people to be able to connect and learn around that content. So what you see with the app today is very much the beginning in terms of trying to get off the ground, but what we're trying to make it easy for people to do is find really, really high quality curated content around what you're interested in. So for example, Brendan has a Bitcoin collection on INDX. If you're interested in Bitcoin, rather than just going on YouTube or trying to learn about it on your own, you can basically fight through a lot of the noise to find some signal from someone like Brendan, who has done a lot of the work to know what content is worth spending your time on. So we're not exactly sure what that looks like right now. Part of it is being very iterative and chasing it, but that's the higher level problem that we're trying to solve.
Conor:
Awesome. Thank you very much for that description. I know we've kind of briefly went over your career paths to it, but Thomas, could you briefly explain your career path that has led up to your decision to create the app INDX?
Thomas:
Yeah, for sure. After Holy Cross, I went to a graduate program at Notre Dame. It was a technology entrepreneurship masters, so it was a really cool I think and beneficial additional experience on top of my Holy Cross education to learn a lot, push the technical skill sets for me, which is around data and analytics, and also learn a lot more of entrepreneurial skill sets specifically around technology. And after that, I went to work for a company called Avanade which is owned by Accenture, and then Ernst & Young in their technology consulting practices, basically helping really big companies build out products and services that allow them to better serve their customers. So if you think about like the Starbucks app, that's not an exact example, but helping a company build a loyalty and rewards app and building that out.
Thomas:
And then as I was doing this, I felt like I was building a lot of the skill sets to be able to go into entrepreneurship, which is what I always wanted to do. And as I came across the pain point for INDX in my own life more and more, being a young professional outside of school, I was very used to learning. And I felt like I had to continue to do that and doing it purely on my own was very difficult. What content should I spend time on? If I did consume a great podcast, there was a lot of friction in maybe like calling Brendan up and asking him to listen to it so that we could both have a chat about it. And that's kind of what inspired the leap into trying to build what we're building now to make that a lot easier for people to benefit from all the incredible business, productivity, health content, name the other topics, that way you can kind of self-learn or self-educate as a part of a community.
Conor:
Awesome. Thank you. And Brendan, I know that you talked about your first job was Silicon Valley and how you climbed up through the ranks through there and had possessed multiple different jobs while you were there. But can you explain a little bit after where you went after Silicon valley and then what led you to your involvement in INDX and how you decided to become a essential partner?
Brendan:
Yeah, so I would say so Silicon Valley Bank is a organization as the name infers is a heavily focused on the innovation economy. So does a lot of work in the technology space, which is where I spent my entire 15 years SVB doing. And so for the last 10 years I was there, actually it was an entrepreneurial experience in and of itself under the umbrella of a big company and actually starting, we'll just call it a venture capital practice within the bank. It was technically debt investing versus equity, but that doesn't matter for purpose of this conversation, but it was really an investment business into growth stage companies. And did that for 10 years at SVB. So I really got schooled and trained and learned a lot about venture capital investing in early to mid stage businesses that are in growth.
Brendan:
And so that is, as I think about my investing being my craft that I practice, it is like I'm not going to be your guy that tells you the best public market stock to pick. I'm much more of a asymmetric thinker in terms of invest early in opportunities that yes, have a high probability of failure, but also have significant upside potential to them. And so as it pertains to INDX specifically, in addition to just how it kind of aligns with a lot of the values and the ethos that I just operate within at like kind of the foundational level, from an application perspective, and then obviously overlay the relationship that I have with Thomas, it was a very logical investment. In addition to the fact that like, this is a product that I want and I use this thing every day, not because I'm investor, but because it actually adds efficiency to my life and value to my life in the curation process, the consumption process, and then the community aspects of it as well.
Brendan:
And so it was fun. Thomas was so kind to bring me into his entrepreneurial ideation. We had a lot of meetings, whether it was over lunch or in an office or on a phone where we just riffed. We literally just like, because this wasn't his first idea. Thomas is an entrepreneur through and through. He's constantly, I'm sure he is thinking about stuff right now. Maybe not. But I remember we had a lot of conversations about a health app at one point, Thomas. The point is like being in on the, like Thomas inviting me in on the ground floor, seeing his entrepreneurial wheels turn and go from idea to now something that is in full blown execution mode has been a really, really been a really fun, been fun to be a part of that journey. So yeah, I'll just leave it at that for now.
Conor:
Awesome. Yeah. Thank you very much. Seems like Thomas is quite the entrepreneur.
Thomas:
Not yet. We're working on it though.
Conor:
So Thomas, I've read a little bit about you and Susie's road trip and the day that you guys came up with the idea for INDX and it is a very interesting story. So could you please share that story with the audience?
Thomas:
Yeah, absolutely. And no, thank you for mentioning Susie. But so Susie Lira-Gonzalez is my co-founder. We actually met at Notre Dame. She went to Gonzaga, so not quite Holy Cross, but they're in the Jesuit family. Heartbroken by their lack of a title in March Madness yet again, but she's being resilient. But I'll share a few things, like first off, we haven't been successful yet in the definition of an exit or making our company public. But it is a long road that you try to take as quickly as you can when you're trying to test and validate if an idea is worth working on and then building it. And there's a lot of people who support and that's what makes it really fun. And so in addition to Brendan and Susie, as my co-founder, we worked together in technology consulting. As I was kicking around ideas, it sounded a lot different than the product is today, but we were in a car ride from Redmond, Washington.
Thomas:
We were at Microsoft for the day, back to Seattle, which is where I lived at the time, just talking about different problems that we faced and kind of both had a lot of overlap in terms of our conviction that helping people learn from distributed content would be a big problem. And we didn't know exactly what that was. And so it's been the two of us and we're now a team of five over the past year. But those early, early days, or even now, you need partners. You need people who are going to support you in terms of figuring it out. And super thankful for Susie with that as well, especially because we have very complimentary skill sets, which she's an engineer by trade and very operationally focused where I can come at things from more of a higher level. So I guess the takeaway from that is finding partners and team members and whatever you're working on that compliment the way you think and how you like to solve problems.
Conor:
Awesome. Thank you. What a great story. But I love how INDX is for lifelong learners like we are here at Holy Cross. So have you guys always wanted to create an app or something that promotes lifelong learning or did that day driving home to Seattle just searching from some inspiration for you guys?
Thomas:
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think there's a few things. I think that there's your values, right? Like Brendan was kind of talking about earlier. And then you can't just build something because you care about it. At the end of the day, there has to be a problem and you have to be able to solve that problem for people. And so I think you get lucky when you find a problem that you experience personally, that you also care a lot about in trying to solve it. So definitely didn't always have this in mind. Like Brendan was saying, there's a lot of other problems and ideas that we looked at related to health, related to other aspects of education and learning. And this is kind of the one where we just saw the most early demand or in talking to people and testing the idea, building prototypes, that kind of thing got the most traction. And that's kind of what we just continue to chase is additional traction, additional ways to level up and see if the business is viable.
Conor:
Awesome. Thank you. Seems like a great, great idea. And I know that there are probably so many different steps and factors that went into and are going into making the app of INDX. So can you briefly summarize and explain the process that it took and is taking to create the app?
Thomas:
Yeah, for sure. And I think the layer I'd add on top of it is I think that Holy Cross students, hopefully making this useful and interesting for people, like as you're thinking about career paths, I think working for startups, being in entrepreneurial environments that Holy Cross students are very preset to benefit there. A lot of it involves critical thinking, communication, having clarity of thought, going to gather evidence on things, right? And I think that that education can really help you chase that. But I think the process is like in simple terms and there's no one way to do it, but the way that we've done it is when we had the initial almost hypothesis of a problem for a particular person, we went and talked to them, tried to better understand and not solution or come up with what exactly an app or a software or an email service or whatever it is, looks like, but really define the problem and the pain that someone goes through and their experiences, and really observed that.
Thomas:
And then we built something that was really crappy, but people still used it, which kind of told us that even this really crappy thing might be worth making better because people were still able to... For example, the first app we built quickly, you had to put in your password every time, which I'm sure you can imagine, Conor, like you wouldn't want to do ideally, but people were still using. That was a pretty good signal that we could keep doing it. And then we ended up raising a little bit of money and built a team around the idea to chase. And we're still building out the app right now. It's not done. It's a constant work in progress. But I think the main thing is staying super close to who you think that customer is, seeing how they're interacting with it and continuing to be as intellectually honest as you can, if you're actually solving the problem and able to build a business on top of it, which is kind of the stage that we're at now.
Thomas:
We have the app built. We have some investment that gives us time to figure it out. And the next steps for us are, what channels can we go through? Do we really know who that beginning customer are? How are we going to monetize the product in a way that is sustainable and has incentives aligned with the user are kind of the challenges that we're tackling now. And each time you gather evidence, make a decision, see if you're right or wrong. And then if you're right, you can keep going. If you're wrong, you got to go back and see which I guess road in the woods you're going to have to take next.
Conor:
Right. So I guess a follow up for that. So how do you guys promote and advertise the app?
Thomas:
Yeah, absolutely. We haven't spent a ton of time on advertising until recently. A lot of it has been, so having like 1,000 people in a beta or like people coming in, super communicated with them as they're using early versions of the app. And it's just gotten to the point now where we're able to start to push for more people, just because we have more conviction where we're at and kind of pushing to handle it. There's a, like you want to figure out that value hypothesis first before you can grow. Because if you're building something no one cares about, when you try to grow, they're going to try it and then they're going to leave. And then you should just go back to the drawing board and making sure that you're creating that value.
Thomas:
But predominantly through newsletters and podcasts, which probably makes sense given what the app allows you to do. But the most traction that we've got is either organic or paid advertising in different newsletters. People who are already self-selecting into owning their own education and they're learning, subscribing to a writer or listening to a business or a technology or a health podcast, those kind of areas is where we've had the most success. And that came from trial or error. We've played with Instagram ads and stuff like that and they didn't play very well for us relative to kind of those more specific forms of advertising.
Conor:
Awesome. Thank you for that. Would you say that your liberal arts degree majors in economics, has it had like an impact in your creation of INDX? And if so, how did it help you in the creation of the app and moving forward?
Thomas:
Yeah, I think it definitely helped. I think the main thing it helped with is just the experience of it. When you're in school, you have a professor who's spending time curating content that you're going to spend time on. If you're in a history class or an economics class, like read these materials, spend time on this. And then after you kind of consume that, you have an opportunity to connect within a community that's just built in your classmates. And I know you're not there yet, Conor, but you hit the professional world and you really have to make time for that learning. Like a lot of times it can feel like there's just an immediate task at hand that you want to tackle. But continued learning is also important, right? We also live at a time where the ability to create content has basically no cost.
Thomas:
If you look at the podcast we're creating now, it's one of millions and millions that will be published, I don't know, in the next couple months. How do people find the content that's worth spending their time on? And once you do spend your time on that content, how do you have a feedback loop around it? How do you connect with somebody who also read it? How do you maybe revisit that three months ago? And I mean, that's how people learn for the most part in the professional world. There's a lot of friction in taking a course or going to night school if you're building a family or have a full-time job. And so as we think about trying to solve that problem, it's kind of taking this spirit of that education, where you can consume great content and connect with great members of a community and make it way, way, way, way lower friction and have software that helps people do that on their own. And it could become a different variation as we continue to learn more but that's how we're thinking about it now.
Conor:
Sweet. Thank you very much. Obviously you guys have made a lot of progress on app, including a blog and a podcast. So what next steps or ideas are you thinking about? There are so many different topics for people to submit podcast blogs and articles under. So have you guys thought about adding any other topics as well?
Thomas:
I think the main thing, the stage that we're at right now, and I'd love Brendan's take on it as well is we're still hunting for people call product market fit, right? Like iterating on the product where it's truly pulling people in and doing a great job and solving that challenge for them. So less of thinking about like tactically, what we're going to add. The main mode we're in right now is just hunting for the iteration that can hopefully actually crack the nut. So as you think about growing or people using it, or giving feedback on it, at the end of the day, you're trying to find continued traction or where to go next based on if you're actually solving the problem. But Brendan, I'd love your take on that as well.
Brendan:
Yeah. I think as far as what I'd add there is identifying your initial addressable market in any early stage business is critical. You cannot be everything to everybody at all times, particularly in the earliest of stages of a company's life. And so it relates to what Thomas is saying, but like finding the, when I say beachhead, there's a certain addressable market from a demographic perspective that you want to target, and that could be age, that could be educational background, that could be interest, that could... There's a whole bunch of different facets to that, but it's really figuring out as fast as possible through as much iteration as possible, what that best beachhead, that best early addressable market to focus on and then exploit it.
Brendan:
Again, back to the explore exploit thing. You don't want to explore forever and try and do everything because then you'll accomplish nothing. Once you kind of tap into that early sign of product market fit, like engaged addressable market, then you just go. You go run it that hard. And to me, from the purview that I set with INDX, it feels like we're entering into that phase where we're really going to start getting tactical around the exploitation of the addressable market that we are in the mid to late innings of really nailing.
Conor:
Sweet. Thank you for that input. So the final question we're going to ask and then wrap it up is what does your five year plan look like? And so are you guys interested in selling it off, merging, expanding or et cetera?
Thomas:
Yeah, I think it's a good question. I'm not sure there's a five year plan related to it specifically. I think it really depends on trajectory, right? I guess, answering it generically, like it could not work and essentially go to zero. There's acquisition, there's continuing to have the built business grow and eventually have companies go public. I think in general, what I'd close with is I think that it can be challenging, but it's a lot of fun and worth pursuing a problem that you care about. I think that Holy Cross in general, the community, other students, as they look at career opportunities should look at something similar. And so for me personally, whether it's with INDX or whatever may come next, it's the kind of ecosystem that I want to be involved in, like early stage technology startups. It's very dynamic. There's a lot of opportunities to solve problems that you care about and technology's changing every day, which is going to give you new tool sets to solve those problems.
Conor:
Awesome. Thank you. Brendan, do you have any input on that?
Brendan:
Yeah, I mean, I don't have much. Yeah. I tend to just be as much of a sounding board and a... Just for Thomas and Susie. And so ultimately I think INDX could become a bunch of different things. And ultimately the market's going to be the referee and all you can do is continue to just be maniacally focused on executing, on solving the problem that INDX is setting out to solve and what's going to be, is going to be not to be. Not to finish on a super cliche, but there you go.
Conor:
Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much for your time. I really appreciate hearing about your Holy Cross experience and how you use your liberal arts education to pursue the business world. And then I also, it was awesome to hear about INDX. Such a great app. I know on my part, I'm going to talk to my friends about it, show them the app, have them download it, check it out. Because I know definitely a good amount of my friends will be into that and then bring it home to my hometown, talk to my parents, my siblings, and hopefully they can bring that in their own paths to their schools and their colleges. So hopefully we can all have a part.
Thomas:
Feedback is much appreciated. So as you play with it, let us know.
Conor:
I will. I will. Thank you, Thomas and thank you, Brendan.
Brendan:
Thanks, Conor.
Thomas:
Thanks, Conor.
Maura:
That's our show. I hope you enjoyed hearing about just one of the many ways that Holy Cross alumni have been inspired by the mission to be people for and with others.
A special thanks to today's guest and everyone at Holy Cross who has contributed to making this podcast a reality. If you or someone you know would like to be featured on this podcast, then please send us an email at [email protected]. If you like what you hear, then please leave us a review.
This podcast is brought to you by the Office of Alumni Relations at the College of the Holy Cross. You can subscribe for future episodes wherever you find your podcast.
I'm your host, Maura Sweeney, and this is Mission-Driven. In the words of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, "Now go forth and set the world on fire."
Theme music composed by Scott Holmes, courtesy of freemusicarchive.org.
The podcast currently has 34 episodes available.