A Really Good Week

A Really Good Week

I have always considered myself an extreme optimist. I feel that while the direct connections between thinking positively and actually accomplishing things is hard to draw, I do stand by the power of positive thinking as a force magnifier. There is little doubt in my mind that people prefer to be around positive attitudes than naysayers and that having other people on your side always helps get things done. That said, I have written a lot about the shitty weather we have had all year here in San Diego and even my friend Mike has called me out on it asking how I can reconcile that with my general belief in positive thinking. He is right about that and it is time for me to think good thoughts about how things are going for me.

I think it is always important to give people the benefit of the doubt and think the best of their intentions. I completely understand that such optimism opens me up to disappointment, but it also sends positive vibes in the direction of people who hold in their hands some ability to make things better for me and I always want to give such people the opportunity to live up to my high expectations for them. A case in point is the battle Royale that I have had in the past year with my Alma Mater, Cornell University. I have spent much of my life revering Cornell and being very happy to be affiliated with the place. Before I attended, I always thought fondly of Cornell and Ithaca as the place where my mother went to college and where she came of age. Then, during high school I got a bit big for my britches and listed it as my third choice of colleges behind Yale and Stanford, both of which I chose for totally egotistical and random reasons having mostly to do with their standing that the prestige those names invoke. When Cornell admitted me I was only mildly pleased and not particularly positive about it all, but sort of shrugged and resigned myself to go there. Oh, the stupidity of youth. I think it is fair to say that Cornell was as good a school as I could have ever gone to and was a wonderful place for me to connect to my heritage and do the educational exploration everyone deserves to do as they set the course of their lives. Some of my best friends were those I made at Cornell and the quality of the education I received pays me dividends to this day in many, many ways.

After my five years at here and my dual degrees from there, I went on to a successful Wall Street career and can honestly say that Cornell played an important role in that. Forget about the pure educational input to my thinking capability and just imagine the Cornell connections that directly and indirectly served me well. I was literally given my first job at Bankers Trust by a fellow alumnus who tried hard to give preference to Cornellians. From that point on there were countless times when my connection to Cornell came up as a reason for someone to talk to me, to reward me with a piece of business or to promote my interests or my career. They often say that the most valuable thing you take away from going to a good school is the network it opens up to you and that is something I would agree with in spades. So, I can honestly say that Cornell contributed mightily to the upward arc of my career path.

But that is not all. At my worst moments, those moments when my career took an inevitable step backwards, Cornell was there too in very noticeable ways. My first big setback came in 1990 when I was shipped off to Gulag Toronto to run the Canadian operation, a demotion that was quite purposeful and quite professionally painful (in a very humbling way). I was asked to join the Cornell Johnson School Advisory Council at that time because someone at Cornell thought I had been promoted because I became CEO of BT Bank of Canada. I accepted despite the misunderstanding and rode that position to quite a bit of prominence for over fifteen years. Then, when I took another serious and very public career bullet in 2007 at the hands of Bear Stearns, my first ever Cornell business school professor, Joe Thomas, who was the Dean of the Johnson Graduate School of Management at the time, asked me to consider coming to Ithaca to teach as I sorted out my next moves. It was an extremely kind gesture which I accepted. It did many things for me, including making me a Clinical Professor of Finance and Investments, a title which adds considerably to my resume, reviving my interests in topics like pensions and securities finance, and generally burnishing my intellectual sense of self worth. I will be eternally grateful to Joe for giving me all of that and to Cornell for staying so strongly connected to me during those difficult times.

But then last year, the University and I came apart rather dramatically over my house on Warren Road (which was actually THEIR house on Warren Road). I have detailed those battles in prior stories and worked hard to erase the bad memory of that episode, despite Zillow constantly reminding me of it by sending me listings on the property when I am trying to forget about it all. Nonetheless, I am left with fond memories of Cornell and the times I spent there, especially those times with family and friends at Warren Road.

A mount or so ago I was called by the Director of Development for the Johnson School, someone who went through the drama of the house experience last year. He called to tell me he was leaving Cornell after many years and retiring to a quieter lifestyle in the Berkshires. Before going he wanted to tell me that there was a movement afoot to name a significant set of rooms at Sage Hall for Joe Thomas, who is now retired, but with whom I have stayed very friendly. He asked if I would want to give to that cause even though he knows that I have suspended further gifts to Cornell as a result of our feud last year. It gave me the occasion to ask about the final outcome of the designation of the added gifting allocation for the Warren Road house, which was added to my giving file after the concession I made in ceding the property to the University for resale. He said he would check into it, but I suspected I would not hear any more since his eyes were on the Berkshires.

Then, this week I got an email from the Dean of the Business College at Cornell. He told me that they were prepared to allocate the $234,000 added donation from that house sale to the Joe Thomas naming opportunity and that my name would be included on the gift-giving roles for that cause. My name is literally on a half dozen other rooms at Sage Hall and my face is in bronze in the Atrium, but I care as much about being included on Joe’s giving roster as anything I have ever donated to Cornell, so I was VERY pleased to hear that and agreed immediately. That was good news in two forms. Most importantly, I value reminding Joe and the world how much I care about him and all he has done for me. Secondly, it gives me a basis for a meaningful deduction in a year when I expect my expert witness income can use some tax shelter. That made for a good piece of news for the week.

In addition to that good news, I also was awarded another piece of expert witness business with a new case. At the end of the introductory call, the lawyer giving me the business explained that his firm was dominated by Cornellians and that he himself was a Cornell graduate and that they liked being able to do business with other Cornellians. So, once again, Cornell has come through for me in the end, as I imagine it will continue to do until my dying day. Go Big Red!