It’s an event that could have emotionally devastated many people – a teenager involved in a car accident that took the lives of two of his closest friends and left him hospitalized for nearly a month.
But for Jim Sanzi, the fatal crash strengthened his resolve to make the most of his life.
The now 33-year-old Sanzi was hospitalized for 26 days following the Feb. 7, 1992, accident that killed his friends Tim Doyle and Dave Ceurvals.
“My commitment to honoring the memory of those boys and my second chance at life have motivated me to pursue my career of service in the U.S. Navy and in philanthropy,” said Jim Sanzi, now development officer at the Rhode Island Foundation.
A graduate of Trinity College and Boston College Law School, Sanzi began his post-collegiate career in 2002 in the U.S. Navy, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant commander and attorney for the Judge Advocate General Corps. He still serves in the reserves on a part-time basis, representing military clients and their families at Naval Station Newport on civil legal matters, including estate planning, family law, employment, recruitment and other issues.
He says his time there helped shape his talents and beliefs.
“My service as a Navy officer … empowers me with special skills, such as leadership and discipline, but none greater than my deep understanding of and appreciation for sacrifice and service,” Sanzi wrote in his 40 Under Forty application.
Also a former Adler Pollock & Sheehan attorney, Sanzi came to the Rhode Island Foundation two years ago, applying a “lawyer’s thinking and training to the role of a development officer,” he said. Since that time, his work with donors has resulted in gifts or commitments totaling more than $7 million, he wrote.
And it’s that work that is helping him enrich the lives others while honoring the memory of his friends. •
