A Conversation with Juan Jones

Juan discusses leadership, mentorship, and the power of service—spanning his global career in tech and ongoing commitment to advancing student success at Catholic University and beyond.

Welcome to Cardinal Perspectives, a series featuring in-depth conversations with alumni, students, faculty, staff, and the extended family and community of The Catholic University of America.

In this episode, Juan C. Jones, executive vice president of Global Support Renewals at Oracle, joins Patrick Dwyer, associate vice president for University Advancement at Catholic University.

Juan leads a global team responsible for $19 billion in annual billing through Oracle Premier Support sales. His team manages complex and critical relationships with Oracle's largest and most strategic customers worldwide, helping them protect their Oracle investments through secure and trusted support services. Before joining Oracle, Juan held roles in enterprise sales at both Microsoft and IBM.

He currently serves on the Board of Trustees at both The Catholic University of America and the University of Rochester, where he leverages his expertise in customer relations to enhance the student experience.

In addition, Juan is a member of the Simon National Council, where he advises school leadership on strategic initiatives and student engagement. He also has endowed scholarships that support MBA students at the University of Rochester. Furthermore, he has served on the Executive Board of the Technology Services Industry Association.

Juan holds an MBA from the Simon Business School at the University of Rochester and a bachelor of arts from the University of Notre Dame. He and his wife, Lisa, have a son, Christian, who played baseball at The Catholic University of America and graduated in 2020.

We hope you find this conversation both engaging and insightful.

Patrick Dwyer
Juan, thank you again for being with us today. Let’s get started. I wanted to get your perspective on being a member of our Board of Trustees. How did that come about? What drew you to it? Was there a moment for you and your family?

Juan Jones
Well, thanks for the question, Patrick. It's really been a journey from the beginning, when we first came out here and discovered this amazing University that we didn't know anything about.

My initial engagements with you personally and other members of the community, it felt like a family, to be part of Catholic University. Everyone that has the blessing of being a part of a family, knows that it is all about engagement and encounter.

We had a chance to be involved with the University as parents of a student, first and foremost. And our son loved attending Catholic University, which brought us happiness as a family and a sense of passion about the University, and we ended up becoming donors to the University.

We were involved with Parents Council. A combination of our son being here, the sense of community, the people that we met, and wanting to be a part of the journey and ultimately, of course, the sense of mission that Catholic University has, not only to serve our students, faculty, staff, our Catholic community – but the nation and the world at large.
I think all of those things converged together and I wanted to be a part of the success of Catholic University, helping it grow so that it wouldn't be a university that we hadn't heard of when we were in California, to the amazing heights that this University can achieve.

Patrick Dwyer
I've heard you talk about the emotional connection that developed in moments over time. The Parents Council work that you and Lisa were involved in was great. Your active participation on the Athletics Board of Visitors, amazing. But trusteeship—there's a different level of ownership and accountability. How much did emotion play into how you've gotten to where you are with us?

Juan Jones
Emotion played a huge role. We find it in our faith, we find it in encounters with people. I think the first thing that drew us to Catholic University was the people that we met.

Whether it was the dining hall staff and the passion and emotion they had to be part of Catholic University, or the professors, or the athletics coach—in the case of baseball, Coach Natoli—you don’t get any more raw emotion than from that man.

It happened with you, it happened across the board for us. We really felt a sense of community and a sense of family here. When someone feels that emotional connection to anything in life, you take all those things, put them together, and have the grace of God as a flashpoint to ignite that passion that's inside us. It's what really drew us here, and it's what really drew me to commit to being a trustee, because I think this institution is so important and has so much potential. I've seen that potential realized since our son first came to see the University in 2017.  I'm losing track of time to have my years right. I think it was even earlier than that actually, because he graduated in the Class of 2020, so it was before then.  It's really been an amazing journey that the University has been on, and I wanted to be a part of that journey.

Patrick Dwyer
 What are a couple of those points of transformation that jump out to you, one or two even in the eight years since Christian stepped onto campus for the first time? What have you seen?

Juan Jones
 New buildings, for one. We've opened up the Conway School of Nursing that we're in right now, which is state-of-the-art. It’s amazing for any nursing student, or any prospective student in the nation, if they come visit this building.

Patrick Dwyer
I want to be a nurse. I want to go back.

Juan Jones
Me too. You're just awed by it. It's amazing infrastructure. Thanks to wonderful donations from Bill Conway and his wife and family and others who contributed to it. I think the campus has grown organically. You see that just walking around the campus—Garvey Hall, a wonderful dining facility the students have, improvements in the athletics field—near and dear to our heart with our son playing baseball—with much gratitude, which we were delighted to be a part of.

So I think we've seen it in the physical. We continue to see it in the students that come here—those that choose Catholic University. The richness of the individual students, what they bring to the table, who they are.

It's been a pleasure and a privilege for our family to have my niece come to Catholic University. She's actually graduating this year.

Patrick
It's hard to believe.

Juan
That's part of all that energy. We wanted her to come here—we encouraged her to the degree that we could. Of course, she’s the one that chose to do so.
There were various points in time—the passion our son had for baseball and what he experienced, being a part of those games, that energy, participating in Parents Council, the camaraderie and friendship with other parents, dealing with some of the students I mentor—one of the students is here today. 

It’s the people who really make this campus what it is. I think our faith is over all of that. When you combine those things together, how could you not want to be a part of taking this University to the next level?

Patrick Dwyer
I'm with you, but I'm biased. How about your role on the Board? How have you found that your professional background has shaped what you feel like you've been able to contribute to your membership on the trusteeship?

Joan Jones
I've been in a service role in my company, and you're always focused on the customer and focused on outcomes. What better place to focus on the "customer," in the sense of the student and the student experience? Student Affairs was something I immediately gravitated to.

It was funny—five minutes after I joined, I was asked to chair Student Affairs. My sense of service, my sense of focusing on outcome-based results, and wanting the young men and women who choose this University to have a great experience here. I wanted to listen to them and understand what their needs are.

From my business career, I found that being an active listener is critical to understanding exactly what people are looking for and what they're trying to effectively communicate. Listening to what they say, internalizing it, and then taking action.

It's been a good marriage of my professional career with the things I've worked on here at the University. And I will say, as it relates to advancement, I love to sell. I have a background in sales, so I’ve had the pleasure of going out, meeting with our prospective donors, getting some wonderful contributions from them, and then seeing their donations and their passions realized.

We have a wonderful project going on in baseball, for instance—the Diamond Project. I've had a chance to fly out and meet with some of our prospective donors and help make that happen. I find that to be fun, and I see our University continuing to grow as a result.

Patrick Dwyer
To the point you were making earlier—you like doing sales, and you’re good at it too. You’re tapping into a skill set, and I think you’re serving us and helping us learn from you.

Maybe with a little introspection—what lessons have you learned during your time as a trustee?

Juan Jones
It has been interesting as a trustee. You realize the number of constituents a university has. It's a complex environment. You're trying to serve many audiences and ensure you can harmonize those audiences to achieve the goals you believe are best for the students, the entire university community, and the university itself. You realize that is a complicated task.

Given this University's unique role as the Bishops' University, it's essential that everything we do has our mission and our Catholic faith at its core, while being welcoming to others who are not Catholic. They may still believe in our values, share our sense of community, our sense of humanity, and our sense of purpose—goals that, as human beings, we all share or should share together.

That gives us an opportunity. I heard from one of the bishops that the Catholic Church should propose, not impose. I think we have a very strong value proposition, and it's all of our responsibility to make people aware of it and to help our fellow brothers and sisters in any way we can.

If we create a welcoming environment here at Catholic University, people are exposed to the tradition of our Church and to our mission. I think it can help our community grow.

Patrick Dwyer
I want to shift gears a little bit to some more programmatic work we're doing. You’ve spoken to our efforts, and you talked about times where you actually hit the road with us and engaged some of our alumni—either on donor projects or otherwise.

We're trying to do more of that. We're trying to bring more people into our spheres. We're trying to connect with people more through our alumni engagement efforts and beyond.

We have a relatively new program—the Cardinal Ambassador Program—which is geared toward establishing better partnerships internally between admissions, alumni relations, and development.

From your perspective, how does a program like that support our current initiatives and overall mission? And how can people get involved?

Juan Jones
I think Cardinal Ambassadors is an exciting program. First of all, I love the formalization of the structure—to create something holistic. It’s not just the alumni office, which of course is critical, but a holistic approach to evangelizing the University, if you will, and using that function to bring together various disciplines and participants.

When you're proud of something, you want to talk about it, you want to share it with others. You want to be, in effect, an ambassador—someone who is representing the University and all the good things about it, getting the word out.

Doing that in an interdisciplinary way across functions is key. It’s not just the advancement team trying to do advancement—it’s all of us, within Cardinal Ambassadors and beyond. Having that core group, and giving it structure, giving it a voice, giving it a set of clear goals to achieve—I think that's critical.
As we grow those ambassadors, others will engage with them and say, “Hey, I want to be one of those folks too.” I want to evangelize this University, talk about everything it does, help it grow, help raise funds, help drive more alumni engagement, and build deeper community engagement.

It spans so many dimensions. You need to harness all those things together to drive substantial, enduring growth—and in essence, build strength in numbers.

Patrick Dwyer
From our perspective, it’s about empowering people to buy in, in real ways. To take something they might have been thinking about doing off to the side and say, “actually, we can galvanize here.”

Juan Jones 
Get them to take action, get them to donate time, treasure, experience, expertise—whatever they have. Really get people engaged. I think one of the biggest things—and I’ll go back to that word: encounter. We see Christ in encounter. We see the best of ourselves when we reach out and engage someone.

I love it when we create emotional connection—when we connect around passion—and then get someone to act on that passion. To give to something they are passionate about, that they believe in, that’s going to help the University grow and succeed beyond today. It becomes part of their legacy at the University, if they choose. 

That’s why I like Cardinal Ambassadors—as a kind of nexus and core to foster that growth, and to drive it in a consistent, repeatable—I'll use some of my business terms—scalable way. So I’m really excited about the program.

Patrick Dwyer
And then the other byproduct, which is great, is that it hopefully feeds into things like growing our enrollment, bringing new students to Catholic University, and promoting that sense of the next generation.

Juan Jones
Exactly. Next generation of Cardinals. That is why I spent time recruiting my niece.

Patrick Dwyer
You were the first ambassador.

Juan Jones
I had a chance to recruit in California. Samantha was the daughter of one of our administrators I worked with—a lovely woman, Gina. She was talking about her daughter going to college in the Bay Area.

We're just talking in the office and I said, “You should look at Catholic University. It's an amazing institution.” She didn't know anything about it. Their family came out, and Sam recently graduated from the University.

I think we just need to continue to do that. Doing things in a one-off fashion—getting my niece, getting a colleague's daughter to attend—is one thing. But Cardinal Ambassadors, as a program, again, we want to take advantage of scale. We want to get the word out across the board.

Patrick Dwyer
Absolutely. So you've touched on some already, and I maybe, if you wouldn't mind going a little deeper, the role that faith or spirituality play in your own life and how you lead and how you make decisions.

Juan Jones
Faith is a very personal thing, and all of us are called in different ways. I think we have to open our hearts to listen. We have to explore within ourselves. And then we have to act as people.

I grew up Catholic. My mother was from a small town in Spain, and my dad was Southern Baptist. My dad was always good enough to take us to church every Sunday—him as a Southern Baptist with his three Catholics: my mom, myself, and my sister.

Spirituality for me has fluctuated. I’ve been into it more, sometimes less. Sometimes I’ve just been too busy with day-to-day life and not taking the focus that I probably should have.

But I will tell you that coming to Catholic University, through our son’s experience, really awakened the faith in me. It’s been a regenerative experience in terms of my own faith—being here, what I feel when I’m on campus.

I know we happen to share the same parish since I moved out to the D.C. area. I go to church every Sunday. I’m not holier-than-thou or better than anyone—it has nothing to do with that. But it woke something back up inside me that had been, I’ll say, a bit dormant. And I had an awakening. Catholic University was really the trigger to that.

That has been exciting for me personally, and it's been very spiritually rewarding to awaken that which has always been inside me. The institution has provided me with that, and I’ve found it to be very rewarding personally, in my faith and in how I try to touch others—with the attributes of being a good, decent person, and everything else that comes along with it. Catholic University—although I was not a student here, but the parent of a student—has very much recharged my faith.

And the sense of mission is probably stronger than ever as a result.

Patrick Dwyer
It's pretty awesome. You and Lisa, with your philanthropy, have invested significantly in the University. You talked a little bit about the projects you've supported—the Diamond Project and a few others.

Why did you choose Catholic? Why do you prioritize Catholic University from a philanthropic perspective?

Juan Jones
We made Catholic University our number one priority from the philanthropy of our family really because of the people we've encountered here and the sense of mission that Catholic has.

Buildings and beautiful campuses—there are lots of beautiful places in D.C. with greenery and impressive architecture—but it's really the people. You hear this as you get older: "The people are the ones that make a difference. The people are our greatest asset. What makes a place is the people." It turns out that was wisdom, and it’s true.

What we found here is a sense of community, a sense of family, a sense of belonging in a welcoming institution. It’s a place where we decided, "Let’s do what we can. Let’s pitch in." I come from a military community background, where everyone—no matter who they are—has a common sense of purpose, a common mission. Everyone plays their role on the team. I happen to love sports, and Catholic University has great sports programs too.

We felt like we could contribute and help make a difference—in our case, for future generations of Catholic University baseball and softball players—and help make an impact there.

Those fields, now that they’re lit, are used at night by kids who want to play frisbee or gather and just enjoy some recreation. We thought we could make a difference there. Do our small part to help make the University a better place.

To foster that community—because a community needs to be fed, it needs investment, it needs to grow. We’re focused on trying to make this a good place.
If we can help with recruitment, if we can support enrollment through athletics, we want to do that—because we want this to be a viable, sustainable institution.

We felt that comfort. We felt so welcomed. And simply put, we just wanted to do our part where we could help.

Patrick Dwyer
I say it often—how grateful we are. Let me shift to something a bit more mechanical, but it relates to a conversation we had earlier. I would love to hear you talk a little more about your journey as a donor to Catholic University or elsewhere. What are some things you wish you knew earlier that you didn’t?

If you were talking to a previous version of yourself as a donor, what are some of the mechanisms or opportunities that donors have to give in more creative ways?

Juan Jones
If I could go back in a time machine, I would say—you don't realize how many ways there are to donate.

You can donate your time, your expertise, your wisdom, and those things matter deeply. But if we focus on financial contributions, the first thing I would say is: every donation matters. I used to think, “My donation may be too small,” but it's not. You hear about these headline-making gifts—tens of millions of dollars—and think, “That’s not in our scope.” But I learned several things.

One: you can pledge a donation and pay it over time. Almost like installments.You could have a $3 million donation—or a $300,000 one—and pay it over three or four years. That model can apply to small donations too, not just large ones. I used to think, “You have your after-tax income and then write a check for the full amount.” I literally didn’t know you could space it out.

Another thing I didn’t know about was appreciated stock. If you happen to have stock, RSUs, or stock options, you can gift that stock at its appreciated amount. Catholic University receives it at that value, and you, the donor, get a tax write-off for that amount without paying capital gains on it.
That can be very significant. That model ended up working out well for our family—and I didn’t know about it at all before.

Another creative way is leaving a gift in your estate plan. I learned about that from one of my fellow Board of Visitors colleagues, Vinny, who’s also a trustee. He made a very generous estate gift. And you come to realize, it’s not just about how much cash is in your checking account—it’s about looking at all the ways you can give: appreciated assets, estate plans, and different payment schedules that can fit into your family’s financial planning.

Those would be some key things I wish I knew earlier.

But I’ll also go back to the idea that if you can give $500 or $1,000 and do it consistently, year after year—the University truly appreciates that. Those gifts are dependable. They help across so many dimensions. Every gift matters.

Our journey, in working with you, was truly a collaboration. It’s a partnership. I think our first couple of gifts were $10,000. Then we gave $100,000. Then we gave a couple of million for a project.

That all came through collaboration, partnership, and trust—along with some luck and good fortune. But it was a journey.

It came from us getting to know one another, working together, sharing faith, experiencing real encounters, staying committed to the mission—and having all of that converge, with God’s blessing.

And it’s been a great journey.

Patrick Dwyer
Thanks for sharing that insight. The previous Juan Jones would have thanked you too, right? To know some of those things. I think you’re probably one of many people who don’t realize that there are some pretty creative vehicles out there to make a significant impact.

Juan Jones
Yeah. I think it’s important to educate folks on what those vehicles are. Growing up as a lower-middle-class kid, scraping through to get to college and then going to graduate school on a full scholarship—I didn’t have any of that in my background. I had to learn it along the way.

One of the important things for the advancement function, in particular, is to educate our community on what these things are, how they work—so people are aware of them, understand them, and can see what might fit best for them.

Patrick Dwyer
Couldn’t agree more. So—Christian’s a Cardinal, proud Class of 2020. What has it meant to you and to Lisa? You may not want to speak directly for her, but I imagine you’ve got a strong sense of what it’s meant to both of you to see your son’s experience at Catholic University. Did having that close personal connection change your perspective?

I can’t imagine it didn’t influence how you view your work with the University.

Juan Jones
It definitely did. Christian loved his time at Catholic University. There isn’t a day—or at least a week—that goes by where he doesn’t refer to something from baseball, or something about being on campus, or leading the charge at the basketball games.

Being as rowdy as he could be at those games—he loved the community he found here. And that’s from a kid who grew up in California, in the Bay Area. During the four years he was at Catholic University, we were living in California. But he felt so welcome. He wasn’t homesick, which we were a little worried about at first. He was embraced—by the University, his friends, his peers, and the broader community.

He happens to be a person of color, like I am—but just like any other student, he ended up loving it here. He had a great experience.

For my wife Lisa and me, obviously having a child so far away—when it’s a five-and-a-half, six-hour plane ride from the Bay Area—you’re entrusting the university to foster and deliver an environment where your child feels safe, secure, and comfortable being who they are. A place where they’re enjoying themselves, getting a good education. And in the case of Catholic University, we hoped he’d also feel a sense of mission. That kind of thing is very personal—it may or may not land depending on how someone’s touched. But for him, it was significant. He felt warm, welcomed, safe, and trusted. He felt joy. He felt the challenge of academics—challenges we wanted him to experience.

We wanted him to be at a good school where he was learning things he could apply after graduation. And he’s done that. He’s been working since he graduated.

A place like that creates a real sense of comfort for a parent. If you're blessed with the ability to contribute—whether financially or otherwise—you do what you can. My parents could never have done that. They were blessed in many ways, just not financially. But if you are in a position to participate, whether through support or through your time, it's meaningful.

I’m amazed how much time I spend working on matters related to Catholic University. It’s a lot of fun. It’s really special to engage with clergy at the level I’ve been able to—what a privilege. It’s not something I ever expected, to be in conversation with bishops, cardinals, priests, sisters. It’s just a wonderful way to be involved.

It all started with our son being a student here and the incredible experience he had. That’s what rooted our connection. And now we think—how can we help continue that for my niece, and for others, so they can enjoy the same kind of environment?

Patrick Dwyer
I’ve heard you talk a bit about this before, but maybe you could elaborate—what kind of place do you hope Catholic becomes for your son, for his alma mater? What are you trying to help shape it into, so that when he's older and looks back, he thinks, “That’s my school”? Any thoughts on that?

Juan Jones
Yeah, I just think this place has—I've always thought since the moment I first came here—I said, “Oh my goodness,” it was a discovery of what this jewel is, was, and what it could be. What it could be across the dimensions of the physical plant we have—our buildings, sports fields, classrooms, and everything else.

Our location in the nation's capital—what a wonderful place to be able to return to when you've graduated. How can you not pass through the capital of the United States and visit the school you went to? I went to a school in the Midwest, a great Catholic school, but I just don’t get out there that often. I don’t find myself in South Bend visiting Notre Dame. But it’s easy to find yourself in Washington, D.C., and visiting The Catholic University of America.

Our sense of mission in the world—in a volatile, rapidly changing world that’s going through so much—the stability, consistency, and continuity of our faith can be a lifelong pillar for people to lean on. The students that come out of here go off and make an impact—people like yourself. I think that's the most important thing.

Being a businessperson, I think about the product you deliver. That outcome—the results that go off into society and contribute in so many different ways. You meet Catholic University graduates—folks I’ve met in the Bay Area, the governor of New York, countless successful graduates—and the everyday person just being who they are in their community, making an impact. They don’t always make headlines.

I want to make sure this place isn’t a hidden jewel. I want to make sure it’s a known place. A place that achieves the national recognition it deserves for its importance in the mission of the Catholic Church, for the students we deliver to society, for the academic rigor and research we do now that we’re an R1 university. That’s a very limited group of schools with that designation.

The Ph.D.s, the doctors we put out, the collaborations with NASA and other agencies and institutions—this place has immense potential. We’re focused on realizing that potential. I just want to do my little bit to help this be an amazing institution that our son, my niece, and others will be proud of for years to come.

Patrick Dwyer 
That’s well said. And we’re grateful for it. I speak for all the alumni. You mentioned the word “legacy” earlier. Would you mind putting some words behind what that means to you? We haven’t talked much about your professional background, but if you’d like to comment—you work at Oracle and have had a long, successful career. What type of legacies are you looking to leave in the various entities you work in?

Juan Jones 
I think that’s such a multidimensional question. You get to my age, and you start reflecting on those sorts of things. They’re difficult to answer in some ways. But I think we all look back. We were once children with hopes, dreams, and desires. We all come from something.

That family could be your parents, a single parent, grandparents—whoever raised you. But we form ourselves in those early fundamentals—who we are, what we stand for, what we’re all about. I came from a military upbringing—salute and execute. Yes ma’am, no ma’am. Yes sir, no sir.

Our home was about action and results. That’s been a good fit for me. In my own journey, I’ve found that action, results, and continuous improvement work. And it’s been a match for my professional career at Oracle. It’s action-oriented, results-oriented, focused on outcomes, and focused on getting better.
Sometimes you have a great year, and you ask, “How could we do better than this?” But there’s always opportunity—international markets, new segments, new products, things you hadn’t thought about. There are always ways to grow. You just need to be able to capitalize and execute. And yes, there’s always a sprinkling of good luck.

I’ve been lucky—more than I could imagine. But I’m told the harder you work, the luckier you get. I like to say luck is the intersection of opportunity and preparation. That’s when you can appear lucky—but you’ve probably worked your tail off. Sometimes you create opportunities, sometimes they come your way. Either way, there’s no substitute for hard work.

I say that to young folks all the time. Those fundamentals—work hard, drive success—they’re essential. For me, I go back to that inner kid formed by the values my mom and dad instilled: work hard, be honest, be a person of high integrity, do as much good as you can, and make something happen.

So my legacy? I’d like people to say Juan was a pretty straightforward, simple guy. I love sports, so I’ll say—I tried to move the ball forward. I tried to advance things from point A to point B and make them better. If you can leave the world a better place, that works for me as a Catholic and a Christian.

As I get older, things get simpler. You have more clarity of purpose. You don’t get caught up in the clutter of possessions or titles. At the end of the day, you’re just a person like anyone else. So what did you do with the resources you had? Did you leave things better than they were when you got there?

I think it’s that simple. Everything else is window dressing. If you live in a tough inner-city area and make something happen, you’ve made a difference. Here at Catholic University, as we continue to grow, I’m excited. Next baseball and softball season, we’ll have turf fields and lights. We’ll be playing at night.
I’ll think back to when I showed up with my son and we had grass fields and no lights. We worried a little at twilight—could they still see the ball? Now I’ll look at those fields and say, this is better than when we got here. Future generations will enjoy it. We did that—together. We saw something, we pitched in, and we made it happen.

And when it comes to giving, there are ways to give legacy gifts—to make an impact even when you’re not physically here. Your presence will still be here. We just saw the passing of Pope Francis. He’s no longer with us physically, but we’re still talking about his presence, what he did, and how he affected people.

Whether you agreed or disagreed with him, he was the pope, and he made a difference. He’ll be with us for generations.

Patrick Dwyer 
Would you mind sharing a specific mentoring experience?

Juan Jones 
I’m mentoring a young man—Jack. I’ll just use his first name. I was introduced to him his first year by a fellow trustee, Jerry, who was rolling off the board. Jerry made the connection between Jack and me.

I didn’t think much of it at the time. But Jack reached out with youthful enthusiasm, wanted to meet. And I love good energy. He asked to meet, and I said, “Sure—it might take some time, but let’s connect.” And so we did.

He was as energetic in person as in that first encounter. In our discussions, he introduced me to a leadership program that works with inner-city Catholic school students—St. Anthony’s right next door. He invited me to speak at an event on campus. We did an interview-style session with 15 or 20 kids, and I got to connect with them afterward—even followed up with a few.

He’s asked for advice on curriculum, internships. He even asked me to sponsor a school. He told me about the opportunity, gave me the details, and asked directly: “Would you sponsor a school for $25,000?” And I said yes. I joked that I might need to hire him at Oracle!

He also told me about the 4+1 MBA program in the Busch School. I think that’s great—it fits our graduate tradition and shows the school’s growth. I’m the proud parent of a Busch School graduate, so I’m all in.

It’s been a delight to coach this young man. He reached out, he’s eager, he’s motivated, and he’s not afraid to ask. Whether he goes into business or something else, he’s going to do great things.

And that’s the continued product of Catholic University that makes me so proud.