This week’s Project 100+ memory comes from Jonathan C.  Connolly.  He was born in Philadelphia and raised in Waterford Works, which was in the Wharton State Forest and near the border of Camden County and Atlantic County, New Jersey.  His father was an elevator mechanic, and his mother was a homemaker who also did a variety of other jobs to support the family, for example serving as a substitute teacher and selling Avon from door to door.  He has two brothers, Ronald who is an entrepreneur and business owner in the pharmaceutical research industry, and Harold who is a professor of geology at Rowan University.  He went to public schools and graduated from Edgewood High School in 1993.  He graduated from Rowan University in 1998 with degree in history.  Immediately after graduating, in the summer of 1998, he entered the Mainline Paralegal certification program, finishing in the Spring of 1999.  All during his college years, he had been working at Commerce Bank, slowly moving his way up through the bank in various positions.  He was considering law school, but Commerce Bank, impressed with his performance as an employee and with his new paralegal certification, asked him to start up their institutional fiduciary business, focusing on corporate bankruptcy and class action claims.  He was very successful in this business, growing it to the point where they held over $4 billion in assets, including those of Enron, WorldCom, and the Trump Casinos in Atlantic City.  In 2007, TD Bank acquired Commerce, and Jonathan left for PNC Bank.  He worked there during the 2008 financial crisis in the treasury management division.  He was fortunate to be at PNC at that time, as they were one of the safest banks in the nation.  After several years, he decided to go back into the corporate fiduciary arena and took a position at RBC Trust Company in Delaware.  He became a trust specialist, working with families, financial advisors, and trust and estate attorneys across the country in providing corporate trustee solutions. At this time, Jonathan fell in love with estate and legacy planning.  UBS, the largest wealth management firm in the world, then recruited him to become the Executive Director of their Trust and Estate Division, overseeing all corporate fiduciary client relationships for North America and Latin America.  After four years, Comerica Bank & Trust offered him a position as a Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Fiduciary Sales & Client Enablement.  In 2022, he started an endeavor to establish up a trust company with Wealthspire Advisors (a national RIA firm based in New York), and is now President of Wealthspire Trust, based in Franklin, Tennessee.

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I had originally hoped to go to Drexel University, where my grandfather had attended as well as my older brother, Ron.  However, in my junior year of high school, my father lost his job, and my parents no longer had the money to support this ambition.  I was told that I would have to pay for college myself, so my options shrank to community college or a local state college within commuting distance such as Richard Stockton or Rowan. I had applied to Drexel and Rutgers as well, even though they weren’t realistic options.  I got into every place I applied, except Rowan for reasons I don’t fully understand.  I wanted to go to Rowan, as it was closer to my home.  I also played the saxophone since a very young age and wanted to pursue jazz performance, having been inspired to do so by Rowan University professor Denis DiBlasio.  So, I wanted to attend Rowan for that reason as well.  Alas, I was not accepted, so I went to Richard Stockton where I initially started in the marine biology program.  I enrolled there in the Fall of 1993.  At Stockton, I was fortunate to have several classes with historian Demetrios Constantelos, including the Fall of the Roman Empire, Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity and Rise of the Byzantine Empire.  He was the ultimate reason that I changed to become a history major.  He was fascinating; an incredible wealth of knowledge and his classes were mesmerizing.  Dr. Constantelos was extremely passionate about the subject and his students, especially those who had expressed an interest in wanting to learn more. I remember leaving each class both exhausted from the amount of information he shared and the amount of note taking.  After a year and a half, I applied to transfer to Rowan and was accepted. I began in the Spring semester of 1995. 

I had to take most of my classes at night as I worked at Commerce Bank.  I can’t remember exactly the sequence of classes, but I know that I took every class that Dr. Wang offered.  He was similar to Dr. Constantelos.  He was incredibly knowledgeable, and I just loved his classes.  While his English was not perfect at that time, he was vibrant and young and so exciting.  He had been born in communist China, and I loved the way that he explained Chinese history to us American students.  I also had Robert Hewsen who taught Russian history and David Applebaum who taught European history.  Dr. Hewsen reminded me of Dr. Constantelos with his depth of knowledge and passion for each subject he taught was amazing, his classes were a highlight during my time at Rowan.  He was intimidating to some students, but he was mostly concerned with you getting something out of the class. Again, if you showed interest in the subject matter, he had a way of connecting with his students that resonated with me. 

My history degree certainly has been a tremendous asset and provided a foundation for what I do now.  History is about not only the events that shape the world we live in today but it’s also about the people and families that create history and pass down their legacy to future generations. Trusts and wills were developed initially by the Romans, called “fideicommissum,” or commonly referred today as “testamentary trusts.” Personal trust law was further enhanced in England during the 12^th and 13^th centuries, when English landowners left England to fight in the Crusades and conveyed ownership of their lands and holdings to a trustee. The trustee was expected to manage the estate and pay and receive feudal dues and deliver back the property if the Crusader returned to England. This is the personal trust system that is in use today across the world and is widely considered to be the most innovative contribution of the English legal system. 

In my current role, I can see the difference that individuals have made on our society and the impact they can make on the world through their philanthropy, resources, and values created through trusts.  I am proud that I have been a small part of helping some of the most successful, cultural, or industrial icons and their families continue their legacy for generations to come, including Prince, the Rockefellers, Stan Lee, and Luciano Pavarotti. 

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This is part of the Department of History’s “Project 100+,” an ongoing collection of memories by Glassboro State College and Rowan University alumni and staff that began as part of the celebration of the 100^th anniversary of the founding of Glassboro Normal School, later Glassboro State College, and now Rowan University.  Due to interest in the project, the number of interviewees continues to grow.  Thanks to Laurie Lahey for helping proofread and edit the final versions.  Email carrigan@rowan.edu with questions or corrections.  You can find the Link to all of the Project 100 and Project 100+ entries on the Web:  https://chss.rowan.edu/departments/history/alumni_highlights/project_100/