He recalled, "I had really good friends and we all went there together to play hockey." He also liked the fact that BCC courses were easy to transfer.

"I could have gone to Cornell after one year at Broome, but I wanted to stay to continue playing hockey." A smooth skating defenseman, Steve played on BCC's first hockey team in the mid - 70's.

BCC Dean of Liberal Arts George Higginbottom was the hockey coach then, and he remembers Steve's determination on the hockey rink. "He was part of an enthusiastic bunch from Endicott who were used to playing on ponds, " Higginbottom said. They came to BCC as a group. Skilled, reliable, and with great character, Higginbottom says they served as trailblazers for the BCC hockey program.
Steve graduated from Broome, then transferred to the engineering program at Cornell and joined the Navy ROTC. Although Binghamton was a secure home base where he spent his first 18 years, he joined the Navy to see more of the world. "I've always had a wanderlust and wanted to travel," he said.

He became a Navy Flight Officer, and eventually a P-3C Aircraft Mission Commander, leading a 17-man crew to track Soviet submarines in the North Atlantic during some tense times at the height of the Cold War. He patrolled the East Coast and dropped sonar buoys to keep track of the Russian ballistic submarines off the coast, among other missions. Although stationed in Florida, he was deployed all over the world and enjoyed the challenge of such dangerous and far-reaching work.

When his first flying tour was over, he settled into a job selecting candidates to attend the Navy's flight school in Pensacola, Florida, and was subsequently chosen to work as one of a handful of junior military aides at the White House. His additional part-time duties at the White House ranged from telling people where to hang their coats to introducing President Reagan to 200 guests.

"I was able to go to some of the big events," he said. But after roughly two years in Washington, DC, he was ready once again for the inevitable rotation to sea duty that comes with Navy life. He was offered an unusual opportunity to retrain in another aircraft type, this time the EA-6B Prowler which performs Electronic Counter-Measure missions from an aircraft carrier. It required more training at flight school in Pensacola but landed him a three and half year tour in the Seattle area while flying off the USS Forrestal and USS Saratoga.

With a range of flying experience, Steve chose to pursue aerospace engineering next and was given a new position on the ground -- technical program manager. After two years in Monterey, California earning a Masters Degree in Operations Research, Steve transferred to the Tokyo area and worked extensively with Asian aerospace company's providing heavy depot level maintenance and coordinating repairs to damaged Pacific Rim military aircraft. "The position of technical program manager was more appropriate to the business world, which at that point was what I had my eye on," he said.

While in Japan he had to learn to negotiate with Asian companies who would make repairs on the aircraft. He worked with companies all over Asia, such as Korean Air, Japan Aircraft Manufacturing Company and Air New Zealand. He observed, "The Japanese are tough negotiators, but once they commit to something, they stay with it. They are difficult to read because of cultural barriers. But at that time (early 1990s) Japan was ascendant; Japan could do no wrong. I wanted to see what I could learn from the Japanese about business."

When the Berlin Wall came down, Cold War activities slowed and the Navy offered early retirements. Steve decided this would be his last opportunity to transition to the world of finance, something he had always wanted to pursue. "I had over 2330 hours in several different aircraft, had worked at the White House and earned a Masters Degree in Operations Research, but I couldn't read a balance sheet when I first got out of the Navy" he said. Although he had plenty of interviews in finance as he left the service, he lacked some of the basic rudimentary skills needed to enter that field and consequently no job offers were forthcoming. He took his first corporate job after the Navy with a start-up company, developing telecommunications products similar to New York's EZ Pass system. When he saw the company floundering, he left to attend MIT's Sloan School of Management and make sure he gained the accounting and financial skills that he lacked.

After graduating in 1996, he began working for Morgan Stanley Equity Research in New York, analyzing stocks of telecommunications companies with an aggregate market capitalization of over $35 billion and eventually becoming involved in their initial public offerings, mergers, acquisitions, high-yield and convertible debt transactions. He was transferred to London in late 1999 in much the same role. Although now living in Europe, Steve stays in touch with friends from BCC and comes back to visit, noting that, "I am very impressed with the campus and changes I've seen there. I can't wait to take my kids skating at the new rink on campus."

As he reflected on his professional life since BCC, he said. "Broome got me off to a great stable start with good friends and an academic program that was well respected and easily transferable. Since BCC there I've had frequent change and that's been a challenge: I changed airplanes, changed careers within the Navy, changed from the Navy to a civilian job, and changed careers in my civilian life."

He has a wife and three children and enjoys living in London for now. But someday he hopes to make one more change: a move back home to Binghamton to live.

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