Alumni Offer Students a Rarely Seen Look at Albany

On Monday, April 19, 2010 nearly 50 St. John’s University students traveled to Albany to participate in the Alumni Insider’s View…New York State Capital. Sponsored by Fidelity Investments and the Office of Alumni Relations, this outstanding program offered students an opportunity to benefit from the professional expertise and network with Albany area alumni who hold significant positions within the New York State government and related private sector professions.

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The Alumni Insider’s View…Programs enable students to obtain real-world knowledge about a chosen profession and/or field while drawing upon the professional experiences of some of our most successful alumni. By serving as panelists, speakers and moderators, alumni provide students with keen insights based upon years of experience within their individual professions and careers.

Upon arrival in Albany students embarked upon an intensive day that featured panel discussions, tours of the Capital and the surrounding Albany area and a networking reception with regional alumni.

In the first panel, entitled “The Road to Albany. The Journey from St. John’s University to the New York State Capital”, alumni offered personal accounts of how their St. John’s education prepared them for success in their current profession and described the pathways that led them to their career. They stressed the value and importance of the alumni network as a resource for personal and professional success, and urged the students to maintain a sense of integrity in everything they do.
Alumni participating in the panel included:

Mark. T. O’Rourke, Esq. ’02L (Moderator)
Manager, State Government Affairs
Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America, Inc.
Chair
New York Health Products Council

Eli N. Avila, M.D., J.D., MPH, FCLM, Esq. ’03L
Incoming Chief Deputy Health Commissioner
Suffolk County, NY

Hon. Peter M. Rivera, Esq. ’74L
Assemblyman
New York State Assembly

Robert Ungar, Esq. ’87L
Attorney and Counsel at Law
Robert A. Ungar Associates, Inc.

David Weinraub, Esq. ’79SVC, ’84L
Senior Partner
Brown & Weintraub, LLC

Panelists enjoyed the chance to give back to alma mater by mentoring young people who had such an obvious interest in pursuing a career similar to their own.  “This program brings together some of the University’s most accomplished students,” said O’Rourke. “We get to meet with them in an educational setting with the panels but also in a social setting at the networking reception. You can see the interaction between the students and the alumni is just superb. It’s really important that there is such a spirit of collegiality in all the facets of the University.”

“I think this program is wonderful,” agreed Avila. “St. John’s really reaches out to the alumni. Speaking as an alumnus of the [St. John’s] School of Law, it’s a wonderful experience to be able to network with the people who are going to hear your cases. They get to know how sincere you are and it’s important to do that instead of walking into a courtroom being a stranger. St. John’s is very sensitive to that, and it’s nice to see these students already taking advantage of this unique networking experience.”

Maintaining their busy schedule, students and alumni enjoyed a working lunch while participating in “The Advantages and Challenges of Working in the New York State Capital Region”, a second panel that focused on the many career opportunities available in and around Albany. 

Participants in this informative discussion included:

Brian Browne ’93C, ’97G (Moderator)
Assistant Vice President, Government Relations
St. John’s University

Hon. Peter J. Abbate, Jr. ’72C
Assemblyman
New York State Assembly

Scott Armstrong
President
Armstrong Communications

Gerard L. Conway, Esq.
Senior Vice President and Chief Legislative Counsel
Medical Society of the State of New York

Nancy E. Hoffman, Esq. ’73L
General Counsel
Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA)

Hon. Craig M. Johnson, Esq. ’96L
Senator
New York State Senate

Margaret M. Moree
Senior Director of Government Affairs
The Business Council of New York State, Inc.

Hon. Diane J. Savino ’86C
Senator
New York State Senate

Peter Slocum
Vice President of Advocacy
American Cancer Society, Eastern Division

At the conclusion of the second panel students enjoyed a tour of the Capital Building and then boarded the bus for a tour of the Albany area, guided by Peter Gemellaro, Esq. ’93L, an instructor at Hudson Valley Community College.  Gemellaro described the personal connection that he felt when sharing his time and talents with the students. “With
St. John’s there’s a feeling that you have a privilege of getting this type of education, and so with that privilege comes a certain responsibility to give back. It’s always an honor to meet others who are in a position as I was at one time. Some alumni helped me and I feel a special obligation and desire to help others as well.”

Returning from their guided tour, the students participated in a special networking reception that gave them an opportunity to meet and interact with Albany-area alumni in an informal social context.  Many alumni whose schedules did not permit them to be present at the panel discussions were eager to attend the reception and meet the students and other alumni with whom they might one day become colleagues.

“I’m here because I just recently moved to the Albany area,” noted Cathleen Evers ’04CPS.  “St. John’s was such a big part of my life, and knowing that there are so many alumni up here that have had the same experiences I had makes me want to reach out and  connect with them. St. John’s was such a wonderful experience for me. I’m considering going into criminal law, and with the connections that I made and the people that I knew from class, I feel like being a [St. John’s] alumna is a huge benefit.”

“I did the Alumni Insider’s View of the U.S. Capital in Washington when I was a student,” said Rachel Taylor ’08C, “and I found it very informative and helpful in making my career choice. I work at the Red Cross in Utica [NY] so it’s definitely good for me to find out more about public service. I also wanted to meet up with one of my professors that I knew was coming here today.”

Students were quick to note that being selected to participate in such a unique program was a valuable experience for them on many levels. 

“This program gave us access to the inside of something that we’d never be able to read in books or even learn about in class,” said Anastasia Zhukova, an M.B.A. student in  St. John’s The Peter J. Tobin College of Business. “We met people who really shared their personal experiences, really gave us their background and told us much more than they would ever tell an outsider. This program showed that St. John’s and the alumni really care about us.”

For Fawn Lee, a junior in St. John’s College of  Liberal Arts and Sciences, the opportunity to get a firsthand look at the actual workings of New York State government was something not to be missed. “It was really good to see the capital for what it really is,” she said. “The panelists were saying the media sometimes distorts what actually goes on here, and it was good to see that there is so much legitimate work going on every day. It’s obvious that the people up here [in Albany] work really hard and come from  backgrounds similar to ours. They made it work for them, and so can we.”