August 2017: Donor of the Month featuring Thomas E. Keating

Tom doubled his monthly donations!!!

Tom grew up in Ventnor City (the yellow card on the monopoly board) a very small town in South Jersey. As a small boy, Tom thought South Jersey was a state because his grandfather told him he lived in South Jersey, not New Jersey. A little known fact is that South Jersey tried to secede from New Jersey– farm country vs. the industrial north.

Tom Keating with his dogs Zachary and Fanny (looking on)

Tom’s best job was being the president of the Ventnor City Lifeguards—not much pressure and one perk he received was that he had the opportunity to escort Miss Ventnor City to the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City.

Tom attended high school in Atlantic City because Ventnor did not have a high school. He rode a trolley car to school every day that cost 5 cents, or hitch hiked. After high school, Tom became a truck driver. He told his father that his goal was to eventually drive a very large truck. After one year of unloading freight cars and loading his truck, college did not seem like such a bad idea! So he went off to Villanova. At Villanova, Tom earned a B.S in Economics & Finance. He credits Professor Dougherty, his teacher for Statistics and Finance/ Stock Market Analysis course, for having a great influence upon the direction he took for a career. After Villanova, he went to graduate school at Stanford, where he completed the Business Executive Program and the MIT Financial Management pro-gram.

Tom served as the CEO of Travelers Investment Management Company as well as the Travelers Corporation of Bermuda. Tom worked as the head of the Travelers Asset Management and Pension Services Division in Hartford, CT for 37 years, where he managed 25 billion dollars in pension and 401K assets for corporations. He is now retired from the Travelers Corporation and Citi Group. Tom has been quite an active participant in several business related organizations including the Employee Benefits Research Institute, the International Investor Roundtable, the American Pension Conference, and the Profit Sharing Council of America.

Tom is very involved with his community as he was the past president of the Cashiers Valley Rotary Club, Optimist Club, and the Sapphire Valley Country Club. He also served on the Finance Council at St. Jude Catholic Church. He also volunteers in personal ways, serving as a Big Brother in Big Brothers Big Sisters, (Giving back runs in the family.) Tom’s wife Lynn won the 2016-2017 Outstanding Big Sister Award for the State of North Carolina ) delivering Meals on Wheels, tutoring at local schools, and serving on the Council of the Cashiers Boys and Girls Club. Tom will be joining the Blue White Scholarship Foundation Board Endowment Advisory Board in the Fall 2017.

Through the years, Tom has been a loyal supporter of Villanova in a variety of ways. He is a regular contributor to the Villanova Annual Giving Campaign and the Blue and White Scholarship Foundation. He and several of the friends he went to Villanova with, return faithfully to reunions, most recently attending their 60th in 2016.

Tom and his wife, Lynne, have been married for 36 years this July. They live in Cashiers, NC. They have five daughters, 13 grandchildren, and one great granddaughter who loves to come to the mountains and enjoy the rustic, scenic lifestyle of their Western North Carolina home.