It’s fitting that the story of my life with Mike began in college, in an accounting class at Pace University in 1981. By the following year we were married, and then had our first child, Brittany, in 1983. Throughout our 38 years of marriage, our life was dominated by the themes of family loyalty and dedication to education. Our beginning predicted everything that followed.

Mike worked as a CFO of the NY Transit Authority for 30 years, such an appropriate place for him as his mind was always in motion, and he insisted that our daughters follow his lead. He was an engaged parent, always encouraging his 5 daughters to work harder and never settle for mediocrity. He helped them with homework every night after returning from work, quizzed them before exams. If one of the kids got a 98 on a test, he’d ask “What happened to the other 2 points?” Our daughter Alexandria says that her sense of determination was instilled through his persistent drive.

However, Mike didn’t just push our children toward success – he was deeply proud of them, because the importance of education was part of his DNA, having grown up in a family of 6, raised by a single mother, in a household where money was tight. So, when it came time for our oldest child to apply for colleges, Mike threw himself into the task with his typical fervor. He packed up the station wagon and drove Brittany all over the East Coast, to visit colleges.

He did research, studied course catalogs, and learned the intricacies of the financial aid process. Soon, word got out to our friends about his talents as a self-taught college counselor, and everyone began asking him for advice. “What do you think about this school,” they’d say, “should we apply to that one?” He became an expert on the topic, collecting books about the admissions process and interpreting statistics for the neighborhood. He was so good at it that it could have been a second career, and when all our daughters were done with their educations, he helped people at work fill out their children’s FAFSA forms.

And as if all this generosity were not enough, Mike was also a lifelong athlete who coached girls softball and basketball and organized swim meets in our hometown at the River Edge Swim Club. When our daughter Mary Michael was attending Fordham, she was on the rugby team and her dad loved attending every game to cheer on the team. If there was no one able to take the team to the meet, Mike and another parent drove everyone out to make the games on Long Island.