Invest In the Vision: The Campaign for Manhattan

• Message from the Senior Vice President
  

  To our Manhattan University family:

  Even at this challenging time for American higher education, here at Manhattan University, the past year has proven to be a truly uplifting one — thanks to faithful donors like you. In this message and accompanying section, I will share our good news in detail.

  I want to sincerely thank every one of you whose name appears in this issue of our Honor Roll of Donors. All of you play a vital role in our University’s continuing success — especially now. Yes, every year at Manhattan brings new reasons for justifiable pride. But as indicated in the earlier introductory messages from Interim President Frederick Bonato, Ph.D., and our board chair Stephen J. Squeri ’81, ’86 (MBA), we finish this fall semester with two truly meaningful reasons for even greater confidence: First, your ongoing generous support for the Fund for Manhattan; and second, as I explain in this letter, the extraordinary success of Invest in the Vision: The Campaign for Manhattan.

  This issue of the Honor Roll announces the phenomenally successful conclusion of our campaign — a year ahead of schedule and $85 million over our initial goal. Alumni and friends, at all giving levels, have come together to turn this effort into an unprecedented success. Their incredible generosity is a moving tribute to the vision of those who share Manhattan’s unwavering focus on providing a superb, values-based education for all worthy students, regardless of means.

  We launched the campaign at our annual President’s Dinner in September 2019. It was the largest fundraising effort in Manhattan University history. At that time, our stated goal was to raise $165 million in support of facilities, endowment and student assistance. However, our dedicated alumni and friends were considerably more ambitious. Through outright gifts, pledges and multi-year commitments, their support has exceeded all expectations.

  Today, as we celebrate its completion, our campaign has raised approximately $250 million in cash and pledges — with 50 individual gifts of $1 million or more. Most remarkably — and, for me, a particular source of pride — 34% of all alumni supported this initiative.

  Of course, our Campaign’s remarkable success reflects the excellence and progress that have led us to Manhattan’s uplifting change to university status. As always, we ultimately owe this, too, to your support. Your commitment to Invest in the Vision has already begun to have a tangible effect on facilities and programs. Through these and other projects, our campaign is a genuinely transformative stepping stone to securing an even brighter future of ongoing excellence at Manhattan. In this message, I am pleased to report on some especially notable improvements that our campaign has made possible. Appropriately, we start with the original buildings along our Quadrangle.

  Consider De La Salle Hall, the longtime home of business education at Manhattan. Like many of our original buildings, it desperately needed a 21st-century makeover. Seeing the need, former board chair and trustee emeritus Thomas D. O’Malley ’63 made a $25 million campaign commitment — the largest in our history. The gift funded the refurbishment and creation of classrooms, offices and conference rooms, along with a Strategic Innovation Learning Center and a Finance Laboratory. His commitment also benefits business students and faculty by expanding scholarships and grants, supporting research and promoting new teaching initiatives. Recognizing Tom’s unmatched generosity, Manhattan proudly named the O’Malley School of Business in his honor.

  Continuing the momentum, campaign donors also supported the De La Salle Hall Third-Floor Renovations Fund. Their gifts funded named classrooms as well as the new Capalbo Learning Center, promoting student-faculty collaboration, and the Pfaff Student Lounge.

  Slightly to the west is the geographic and spiritual heart of Manhattan University — the lofty structure housing Smith Auditorium and the Chapel of De La Salle and his Brothers. More than a century of wear and tear was taking its toll: for example, the iconic cupola was actually starting to shift from its rooftop moorings. Thanks to a $10 million campaign commitment from Steve Squeri in honor of his father, Joseph Squeri ’54, we secured the cupola and continue to make other vital renovations. In tribute to Steve’s family, the facility has been renamed Squeri Hall.

  On the Quadrangle’s south side is Miguel Hall, home to the liberal arts, education and — with Hayden Hall — the natural and applied sciences.

  Gratefully recognizing a $15 million campaign commitment by Michael ’58 and Aimee Kakos, those buildings are now home to the Kakos School of Arts and Sciences. In addition to modernizing laboratories and other facilities, their gift supports needs-based scholarships for students in the sciences; aid for undergraduates to study abroad; student research and faculty innovation.

  Moreover, our south campus is now the site of the magnificent Patricia and Cornelius J. Higgins ’62 Engineering and Science Center, another testament to the unflagging dedication of our campaign donors. Patricia G. Higgins, Ph.D., and Cornelius J. Higgins ’62, Ph.D., made the project possible with a $5 million leadership pledge. Thanks to them and other contributors, the ultramodern, 35,000-square-foot center opened in 2021. A spacious modern structure with its own quadrangle, the center features high-tech laboratories, classrooms and facilities in engineering and the sciences. It connects to historic Leo Hall, which the University also updated through Invest in the Vision.

  Finally, over its entire duration, the campaign has raised approximately $60 million in unrestricted funds, significantly enhancing Manhattan’s budget, special projects and financial aid. In addition, alumni, parents and friends have enthusiastically supported another critical component of Invest in the Vision, contribuing roughly $120 million for scholarships, chairs and other restricted purposes — vastly growing the University’s endowment.

  These are, of course, highlights of our campaign’s ongoing impact. In the following pages, you will learn much more about new and continuing initiatives taking place through campaign support. You also will meet some of the major players in this worthy effort.

  Above all, you will see how we and our varied partners are setting the stage for a new era of excellence at the Riverdale campus. Thank you again for making all of our achievements possible.

  Thomas Mauriello
  Senior Vice President for University Advancement

Invest By the Numbers

• Thomas D. O’Malley ’63
  

  Lifting Students to Their Full Potential

  A key contributor to Manhattan University for nearly 40 years and a leading supporter of its capital campaigns, Thomas D. O’Malley ’63, former CEO of PBF Energy, recalls that as a commuter student and off-campus resident in the 1960s, he had to work a number of jobs to pay for his Manhattan education. 

  “I am amused that the library is named after me and my wife, Mary Alice, because I believe I seldom visited the facility while I was a student at Manhattan,” O’Malley observes. “Why was that? I was working: I drove a school bus for Riverdale Country School, drove taxis, delivered liquor and, among other jobs, worked for Playbill magazine.”

  O’Malley believes his experience was far from uncommon at Manhattan. “I didn’t feel that multitasking was unusual,” he says. “I think Manhattan is special because it educates people who had to, and have to, hustle.”

  O’Malley is a trustee emeritus, former chair of the University’s board of trustees and the most generous benefactor in Manhattan’s 171-year history. Over the years, he has had many opportunities to interact with current students. “In my last tenure as board chair,” he says, “I often visited the library. It has become quite a place for people to study and socialize. I enjoyed chatting with students there. They had no idea who
  I was.” 

  Today’s students, O’Malley notes, are quite similar to those he met in his own undergraduate years. “I was struck by the fact that 60 years after I attended, we’re still attracting people who know how to hustle and have extraordinary personalities,” he says, adding, “there is one big improvement — I went to a men’s university, and the addition of ladies at Manhattan has certainly enhanced the educational experience.” 

  These are among the reasons O’Malley has continued to support the University through his extremely generous gifts as well as his dedicated service on the board. “I’m very familiar with the university education system in the Northeast,” says O’Malley. “Manhattan occupies a unique position in the sense that it offers an extremely high-quality education to a population that reflects the diversity of New York. Perhaps more importantly, it educates so many people who do not come from families with extraordinary financial capability. The University has this unique ability to educate people and lift them up to their full potential.”

  His support has gone far beyond the new buildings he has spearheaded. He has created scholarship opportunities and enhanced technology throughout the campus, especially in the O’Malley School of Business. He credits much of his own business success to his Manhattan education. “Not only did I learn how to learn,” he reflects. “I learned how to manage my time, how to multitask, how to fit into many different environments in the countries I have lived and worked in.” 

  O’Malley began his career working in the mailroom of Philips Brothers, a large trading organization. Twenty-two years later, he was running the largest oil trading company in the world, which through mergers had become part of Solomon Brothers, the legendary Wall Street investment bank. In addition to running the energy division, O’Malley was vice chairman of Solomon Brothers itself. When he retired from the company in 1986, he started a new career in the oil refining business. 

  His first venture, Tosco Corporation, was built from a small single refinery operation into the largest independent refining company in the United States — also the third-largest gasoline retailer in the country. After Tosco merged with Phillips Petroleum, O’Malley became a director and vice chair of the board of the merged organization. He subsequently went on to run two additional refining companies, the last of which was PBF, from which he retired as chairman in 2016.

  In all of his leadership positions, O’Malley emphasized the values for which Manhattan is so well known. “Manhattan is a school where ethical behavior is not a three-credit course, but rather a school where the entire experience has an ethical base,” he says. “I think what they taught me was to be tough, to be hard, but to do it right.”

   O’Malley has been married to his wife Mary Alice for 60 years; they have four children and 12 grandchildren. A Staten Island native whose parents could not afford to pay for his college, he wants the Jaspers of today and tomorrow to have the same opportunities he enjoyed at Manhattan. 

  “I wound up doing well,” he says. “I traveled the world, did a lot of interesting things and had a fabulous career. Manhattan still offers young men and women an educational experience that can allow them to achieve great success in whatever they choose to do. It’s truly the Harvard of the Bronx.” 

   

• Cornelius J. Higgins ’62, Ph.D., and Patricia Higgins, Ph.D.
  

  “The Right Time to Give Something Back”

  More than six decades have passed since Cornelius J. Higgins ’62 earned his degree in civil engineering at Manhattan University. Through the years, he has distinguished himself as a patriot, an engineer, a business leader and a dedicated supporter of his alma mater.

  Today, Higgins’ generosity has helped to ensure the extraordinary success of Invest in the Vision: The Campaign for Manhattan, while providing new generations of Jaspers with an impressive and long-awaited new academic facility — the Patricia and Cornelius J. Higgins ’62 Engineering and Science Center.

  Higgins offers a straightforward reason for his remarkable commitment to Manhattan. “Your undergraduate institution tends to be the most formative for you,” he says. “It probably has the greatest influence on what you do after that, your future education as well as your career. That is really where your heart is.”

  A former Manhattan University trustee, Higgins joined his wife, Patricia, in making a $5 million leadership gift in support of the center. Located at Manhattan’s south campus, it comprises 35,000 square feet and features sophisticated laboratories, classrooms and collaborative spaces for students and faculty. Higgins, who served as chief of the geotechnical analysis division of the civil engineering research facility at the University of New Mexico, understands the importance of facilities that support the University’s widely acclaimed engineering and sciences programs.

  His wife also has dedicated much of her career to educating students in the sciences. She served on the faculty of the College of Nursing of the University of New Mexico from 1980 to her retirement in 2000, rising from visiting instructor to full professor. Speaking of their mutual support for Manhattan, she notes, “Neil and I are both the first generation in our families to go to college. We strongly believe we needed to do this.”

  As an undergraduate at Manhattan, Higgins chose ROTC rather than physical education classes, an option the University offered at the time. He joined the U.S. Air Force as a civil engineering officer, with tours in Albuquerque, Taiwan and Vietnam. During that time, he earned an M.S. from the Air Force Institute of Technology. Following his military service, Higgins entered the defense analysis industry, serving as an assistant division manager for Mechanics Research Inc., and later as vice president of Civil/Nuclear Systems Corp.

  At the University of New Mexico — where he earned a Ph.D. and an M.B.A. — Higgins conducted research funded by a National Science Foundation research grant. He and a friend from the Air Force went on to form Applied Research Associates Inc., a national engineering and science firm headquartered in Albuquerque. Higgins served as principal and chief executive officer from 1979 until his retirement in 2010. Currently he is chairman emeritus.

  A registered professional engineer and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Higgins also earned a master’s degree in liberal arts from St. John’s College in 2007.

  Reflecting on his career, Higgins believes his support for Manhattan is a logical response to the education he received at the Riverdale campus. “God has blessed Patricia and me,” he says. “We felt it was the right time to give something back.”

• Michael ’58 and Aimee Kakos
  

  Creating a Legacy at the Riverdale Campus

  Michael Kakos ’58 and his wife, Aimee, have extended an extraordinary level of generous support to Manhattan University for decades.

  Most recently, they strengthened Invest in the Vision: the Campaign for Manhattan with a $15 million gift to expand student scholarships and grants, promote innovative teaching and research, enhance study abroad and diversify learning opportunities within the School of Science. In profound appreciation, the University has named the division the Aimee and Michael Kakos ’58 School of Arts and Sciences in their honor.

  “Aimee and I are incredibly proud to support my alma mater,” says Kakos. “Our gift will help to nurture the next generation of innovators, giving them the tools and opportunities to make a profound difference in the world. The experiences I had on this campus truly shaped me as a person and set me on the path toward a successful career. Aimee and I are incredibly grateful to give back to our beloved Manhattan University community.”

  The couple, who also support Aimee Kakos’ alma mater, Pennsylvania State University, have funded other major initiatives at Manhattan over the years, including the Michael ’58 and Aimee Rusinko Kakos Study Abroad Scholarship, the Michael J. and Aimee Rusinko Kakos Endowed Scholarship for Cardinal Hayes High School graduates, the Kakos Center for Scientific Computing, the Michael J. and Aimee Rusinko Kakos Endowed Chair in Science and a named site in the Raymond W. Kelly ’63 Student Commons.

  Reflecting on his Manhattan education, Kakos says he and his wife want to provide Jaspers with access to the same quality education for years to come. “Manhattan has been the educational love of my life,” Kakos says. “My college education is the most valuable thing I own. We are proud that the Aimee and Michael Kakos ’58 School of Arts and Sciences is my and Aimee’s legacy at the Riverdale campus.”

  After graduating from Manhattan in 1958 with a degree in chemistry, Kakos earned his master’s degree in chemistry on a fellowship to Niagara University. Receiving a second master’s degree — in industrial engineering — at the Stevens Institute of Technology, he began his remarkable career in materials research, working in metals, ceramics and then plastics at Celanese Corporation.

  Kakos earned several foreign and domestic patents before moving to the sales side of the industry. Traveling the globe, he settled in London for decades. In 1987, he founded Resin Express, a company that distributed engineering thermoplastic raw materials for major worldwide producers and suppliers. Aimee joined Resin in 1989 and rose through the ranks to company director.

  Kakos sold the company in 1997. Since then, he and Aimee have dedicated a great deal of time to philanthropy as well as travel. “We have been pleased to support many of the fine institutions we have been fortunate to encounter during our lifetime,” Kakos says. “But Manhattan is in the forefront because we know how it’s impacted our lives. May all of its future students be inspired by the dedicated administration, faculty and staff of this great institution.”

A Measurable Impact