A Q&A session with new Board of Trustees Chairman Frank Messa
Frank Messa ’73 was elected chairman of the College’s Board of Trustees at their meeting during ReUnion weekend.
Messa retired in 2005 as senior vice president for International Strategies of Ayco Co., a financial services and planning firm based in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. that was acquired by Goldman Sachs in 2003.
He succeeds Stephen J. Ciesinski ’70, who has served as chairman since 2002 and has been a board member since 1993. Ciesinski, a Schenectady native who now lives in California, is founder and executive of a number of technology firms. He will remain on the board. Also at the June 2 meeting, Mark Walsh ’76 was elected vice chairman; Dr. Estelle Cooke Sampson ’74, secretary; and Lawrence Pedowitz ’69, general counsel.
"It is certainly a great honor to have been elected Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Union College,” Messa said. “I look forward to working with President Stephen Ainlay to continue to implement the many strategic planning initiatives adopted by the Board of Trustees under the leadership of Steve Ciesinski.”
Messa earned a bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in political science. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was a finalist for the Albert C. Ingham Prize, given to the student in social sciences judged to have done the most outstanding scholarly work.
As an alumnus, he has been a member of the Board of Trustees since 1994, and served as general counsel to the board. He serves as co-chair of the You are Union campaign, and was national chair of the Annual Fund. He served as chair of the Trustee Board of Advisors, Terrace Council and 2003 ReUnion. He also chaired the Presidential Selection Committee for Union’s 18th president, Stephen C. Ainlay, and was a member of the Inauguration Planning Committee. In 2003, the College’s Alumni Council recognized his outstanding service by presenting him with the Alumni Gold Medal.
A generous benefactor to Union, Messa and his family have provided funds for the renovation of Frank L. Messa Rink at Achilles Center, the renovation of Schaffer Library, the establishment of the Frank Messa ’73 Endowed Scholarship, and the Steinway Piano Fund for the new Taylor Music Center. He and his wife, the former Colleen Ann Koetzner, have three children, Christopher, Peter and Keri (a senior at Union).
To mark the start of term as chairman, this magazine conducted an extended interview with Messa.
Q: What is your top priority as the new chairman?
A: Without question, the implementation of the new Strategic Plan adopted by the Board of Trustees this spring is the number one priority. It has been quite some time since the College has engaged in serious strategic planning. The process of developing the plan was extremely important. All member groups of the Union College community, including faculty, staff, students, alumni and board members were had input into the process and the final document was collaborative in nature.
With that as a background, I think the final product that emerged is a very representative and important document. The three key components, or the three differentiators, are what make Union unique. The College is small, global and diverse. Secondly, it is committed to the liberal arts and engineering. And third, we inspire innovation and use our history for inspiration. I encourage everyone to read the Strategic Plan. It lays out a broad plan for the future of the College and its many components will be implemented by the community over the next several years.
Q: What did the search for a new president show you about Union’s reputation?
A: The job candidates themselves said a lot about Union College. We were very pleased to have such a large number of applicants from the very top colleges and universities in the country. That tells me a lot. Candidates with credentials such as these would not have applied for the position unless they were convinced of the great prestige and potential of Union. Our search consultant and all members of our committee felt good about that. We all left saying, “Wow, look at the quality of people who are interested in coming to Union College.”
Q: President Ainlay is finishing his first year at the helm of the College. What are his top strengths?
A: He is uniquely skilled. The one thing that came across during the presidential search was that he possesses extraordinary interpersonal and communication skills. You can place him in front of a group of parents, students, alumni, trustees and he’s equally at home and he talks from the heart. You can just tell he’s a natural. He genuinely loves the school and believes in its mission.
One of the difficulties in running a college is that it’s composed of a wide variety of constituency groups that are very diverse: The interests of students, faculty, trustees, alumni, and parents can be very different. It’s a diverse group and very difficult to manage. To find somebody to connect with all those groups is pretty rare. We think we found the best person.
Q: The College’s endowment is at $360 million. What is your assessment of the financial state of Union College?
A: Finances, for better or for worse, are the key driver for almost all of the Strategic Plan initiatives. If you look at the top 50 schools in the U.S. News and World Report rankings and plot their ranking next to their endowment, it’s not a perfect correlation but it’s very close. Money drives an institution. Financial resources are very, very important to the success of the Union College.
We have been extremely fortunate in recent years to have been blessed with exceptional talent on our investment committee. If you look at Union College’s performance compared with our peers over the last one, three, and five year periods, we are in the top quartile of a very prestigious group of schools. The investment committee, chaired by David Henle ’75, has been able to make the most out of an endowment that a few years ago was in danger of falling below $200 million. We’re now at $360 million.
Again, we think that’s a small endowment because we’re comparing ourselves to Hamilton College: $600 million; Middlebury College: $800 million; and Wellesley College: $1.2 billion. Having said that, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of colleges that would love to have our endowment.
There is a strong correlation between the size of endowment and the quality of the educational experience. I don’t care if its terms abroad, scholarships and financial aid, faculty salaries, buildings, maintenance of the campus. All of these things cost money. We are doing our best and we’re confident that we will hit our campaign goal of $200 million while continuing to grow the endowment.
Q: How has your career helped you be a better alumnus?
A: Being in the business world and understanding how organizations work provides a different perspective in terms of how a college runs beyond the classroom: the infrastructure of a school and how important it is to raise money. Colleges also need good governance and policies that take care of the safety, education and health of students.
Also, part of the emphasis, at least with the companies I worked with, is on being a good corporate citizen, and giving back. Underpinning all of the people that volunteer for the Annual Fund is the notion that you are giving back what Union College gave you: a great education, and in almost all cases at a significant discount. All alumni must understand that giving back is an obligation that we owe to the next generation of students.
There are many ways to give back. People can obviously give money; but they can also participate in clubs and other College or alumni organizations. In the business world, we were always encouraged to find ways to give back to the community and this translates perfectly to the Union College experience.
Q: You are obviously going to spend a lot of time on campus, because you live nearby. Are you looking forward to that?
A: I’ve spent a lot of time on campus but in many different roles. I’m here as a parent. I’m here as an alumnus. I am here as a board member. I plan to be on campus a lot but I don’t want it to be intrusive. I’m not here because I am going to try to run the school. We have some very talented people here to do that.
I love being part of the fabric of the Union College community and participating in as many campus activities as possible.
Also, there are a lot of people on campus that don’t know who the trustees are. I think there are many misconceptions about who the trustees are and what they do. The people on the board are very involved, not some detached group. They are dynamic people. They are people like Mark Walsh ’76 and Jason Oshins ’87 and Steve Ciesinski ’70. I think it’s important that the students know who the board members are and what they do. They are really interested, committed people who devote a great deal of time and energy to improving Union College.
Steve Ciesinski had a great idea by having the trustees here during Homecoming and ReUnion to let them interact with the campus community. I hope that by being local I can do that as well.
The irony is that we probably have the most open board and one of the most participatory boards I know of. Very few schools have students on the board, or faculty on the board, or parents on the board. We have a very inclusive board and so I find it somewhat ironic that some people know so little about it.
Q: Let’s talk about fraternities and sororities and civil engineering. Do you get a lot of questions about those topics?
A: Absolutely. As a result of a number of decisions that have been made, many Greeks and civil engineers have been outspoken in their criticism. While the decision relating to civil engineering is unique to Union College, every college in the country has struggled with Greek life issues. A number of prestigious colleges just cut the cord and decided to eliminate their system of Greek life. They bit the bullet; they took a hit on their alumni giving and moved on.
We have a more difficult problem at Union because Greeks are so integral to the culture of this institution. We are the mother of fraternities. The three oldest fraternities in the country were founded here. The majority of people on the board are Greeks and so we struggled with that issue mightily and we like to think we came up with a solution that was the best possible solution for Union College.
Fraternities and sororities are welcomed and encouraged to stay as members of the community with the active support of the administration and the board. On the other hand, we felt that the Minerva House System bridged the gap between having no Greek system and having a Greek system that totally dominated residential and social life on campus. The Minerva House System allows fraternities and sororities to continue to function and to be part of the community without having them dominate the campus. Everyone is a member of a Minerva House. Many people are members of a Minerva House and a Greek house. I think that many colleges have come to realize that the integration of academic and social experiences is one of the key issues facing college campuses. We think the Minerva House System is the right answer.
We’ll find out. They’re still in very early stages we’re very encouraged by what we’ve seen thus far. Time will tell.
Q: Tell us about your memories as a student?
A: Like most alumni, I have vivid and pleasant memories of my time as a student. I was part of the last all-male class to be admitted to Union and so the experience was quite different than it is today. The relationships I developed here are, to this day, the most important relationships of my life. I remember getting up at 5 a.m. to deliver the campus mail, as well as, playing touch football, and going to classes, concerts and parties. I still have great relationships with faculty members who taught me the skills that helped me throughout my life.
Of course, the campus has remained beautiful but has undergone many changes. When I attended Union, the theater and the bookstore were in the Nott. There was no campus center, hockey rink, or Olin Building. Despite all of these changes, the character of the school has not changed. After all these years, I still get goose bumps every time I walk onto the campus.
Q: What did you write your thesis on?
A: My thesis analyzed on the impact of social factors on voting behavior. I did a comprehensive study of voting patterns of U.S. senators during the 20th century. The essence of my thesis was that a number of social factors, including, occupation, age, regional affiliation and demographic background, influenced voting in different ways depending upon the nature of the bill. We were in the very early stages of computer analysis and much of the work had to be done using methodology that would be considered archaic by today’s standards. My thesis advisor, Fred Hartwig, was at the forefront of statistical analysis and we worked together for hours to develop a workable model. I am genuinely proud of my thesis and still have a bound copy in my library at home.
Q: As a senior, did you know you were headed to law school?
A: I did but when I went to law school I knew that I didn’t want to practice law.
When I graduated from Albany Law School I took a job with a start-up firm nobody ever heard of. There were 10 employees at the time. It was a financial consulting firm but they only hired people with law backgrounds because they did a lot of estate planning and tax work. I took a job at this firm and spent my entire 29-year working life there. The American Express Company bought our firm in the early 1980s and about 10 years later, a group of senior partners (including me) bought the company back. After ten more years as a private firm, Goldman Sachs bought the firm in 2003. I stayed on for several more years as a senior vice president of international strategies and then retired.
Q: Your daughter Keri will graduate this year. What is Keri’s major?
A: She is a history major who coincidentally has the same faculty advisor, Bob Wells, I had when I entered Union as a history major nearly 38 years ago. She has enjoyed the study of other cultures but it is unlikely that she will pursue a career in the field. As a fellow social sciences major, one of the pieces of advice that I passed along to all of my children was to select and pursue a major in which they had an academic interest even though it did not necessarily translate into a career. Although students in the sciences and engineering typically have a better focus on career direction because of the nature of their course of study, relatively few students know their career direction when they are 20 years old. Schools such as Union excel at teaching skills such as critical analysis, writing and communication. These are skills that translate easily into careers in almost any field. The answer to the question, “Why attend a liberal arts college” is plastered all over businesses and boardrooms around the country.
Q: You are an avid reader. What have you read lately?
A: I love to read and during my entire life I have always been able to stay close to my goal of reading one book per week. I primarily read non-fiction and love history. Recently, I have read biographies of Dante and Albert Einstein as well as a treatise on Italian wine. I am currently reading a fascinating book called The Black Swan about the historical impact of highly improbable events. I am particularly fascinated by books about gifted and passionate people and their ability to use the combination of their intellect and passion to accomplish extraordinary things.
Q: Do you have sort of a favorite Union hero?
A: The recent attention brought to William Henry Seward (Class of 1820) by the book Team of Rivals has highlighted the great accomplishments of one of our most famous alumni and a hero to many not only because of his well-documented political successes, but also because of his opposition to slavery, which ultimately cost him the presidency.
It strikes me that on our own campus, we are surrounded by names of modern-day Union College heroes that should be known to students. The names Reamer, Yulman, Taylor, Beuth, Breazzano and Viniar,among others, are more than just names on buildings. They are the names of some of our most successful alumni who have generously given back to the school they love. Every chance I get, I tell the stories of these alumni and as board chairman, one of the initiatives I will support is to encourage the understanding and celebration of the accomplishments of Union alumni across the generations. It should be a source of enormous pride for the entire Union community.
Q: Do you travel internationally a lot?
A: I have traveled quite a bit internationally but my first love is Italy. As the grandson of Italian immigrants, I am enormously proud of my Italian roots. Like many other second-generation Italians, I never learned how to speak Italian. When my grandparents came over to the United States they wanted to become Americans and they didn’t want their children to speak Italian. They wanted them to learn English.
I’m the first person from my family to graduate from college, so I always wanted to learn Italian. The very first day of my retirement, I enrolled in Italian classes at Skidmore College – not the adult education classes but the standard language classes offered by the college. Most of the students did not quite know what to make of me, but I have now completed four semesters of Italian. I am not quite fluent but I continue to improve every day. I am sure my grandparents would be proud. I travel to Italy at least once per year and I am currently looking to buy a home in Firenze. Culturally and educationally, I feel as if I have come full circle.