Alfred J. Verrecchia is the current independent chairman of Boston-based information-management services firm Iron Mountain Inc., and former chairman and CEO of Hasbro Inc. Verrecchia and his wife, Geraldine, recently made a $15 million gift to the University of Rhode Island to support the university’s College of Business.
Verrecchia spoke with PBN about the gift, URI’s growth and qualities college students need in order to be successful in business.
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PBN: What was the biggest inspiration to offer this gift to URI?
VERRECCHIA: I’m a graduate of URI; I graduated in 1967 from the College of Business. URI has always been a big part of my life. The gift is to try and do my part to keep URI a great university and to make it greater, and to do so in a way that gives other kids an opportunity like I had.
PBN: Why does the College of Business mean so much to you?
VERRECCHIA: It means a lot to me because I got a great education [from there]. I got my first internship at Hasbro, which was then Hassenfeld Brothers. That started a 50-year career at Hasbro. The gift that [my wife and I] are setting up does several things. There’s a piece of it called Verrecchia Scholars. It offers scholarships to the best and brightest students that we can attract to the university. Then, to support them, we’ll also be setting up a fund to support students at the College of Business who get internships but need some financial help in being able to take advantage of those internships. There may be a student who is really good and gets an internship in New York, but he/she can’t afford to go. If we can provide some financial support to them … it helps them in their education.
PBN: How vital is it for colleges to offer these internship programs for students to get their feet in the door for the careers they want to get into?
VERRECCHIA: Certainly internships, whether it’s the College of Business or College of Engineering, health services, are critical in terms of helping students become successful once they graduate. It gives them really an inside of what really goes on in business. It’s practical experience and it really helps them in terms of making their [career] decision.
You go out and you work for somebody, and maybe going in you think of doing one thing in life and you’re exposed to a lot of other opportunities through that internship. It’s helpful for the student in helping them decide what they want to do. It gives them practical experience, so when they go out into the world, they have some experience in knowing what employers are looking for and how to prepare themselves. I think internships are critical.
PBN: What has impressed you the most about URI’s growth over the years?
VERRECCHIA: I’ve been very impressed. I think the job that President [David M.] Dooley has done has been outstanding and [former president] Bob Carothers before him helped set the table. I think the university has been very fortunate in having two leaders who have really moved the university in great strides. The construction is one thing, but it is what’s going on inside those buildings. Whether it’s engineering or health services or oceanography, pharmacy, business, there’s an enormous amount of activity going on and the standards of the university have dramatically risen over the last 10 to 15 years.
PBN: What do you feel is the most important quality for college students in terms of what they need to learn in order to be successful in business?
VERRECCHIA: You want to get a good education and be able to work with people and communicate. If you have those three things, you can adapt yourself to a lot of different careers. For example, at Hasbro, we had toy designers who majored in mathematics and majored in business, but they found their love in toy design. They were smart people who got a good education and could communicate well and work with people.
URI and other colleges are training people for jobs that don’t exist. There are a whole host of new jobs that will come on to the scene in the next several years that don’t exist today. We’re training people for jobs of the future. If you have a good foundation, you’ll be able to adapt and do very well.
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and covers the nonprofit and education sectors. He can be reached at Bessette@PBN.com.
