It’s All About the Kids: A Peddie Alumnus Looks Back (And Ahead)

For philanthropist, champion of students and loyal friend to Peddie Michael Armellino ’57 GP’19, his years at Peddie proved to be especially pivotal- a time that dramatically changed the trajectory of his life. He just didn’t realize it at first.

“I showed up with my blue suede shoes and my powder-blue suit. This was 1953, and in West New York (N.J.), that was about as good as it got. My roommate was from El Salvador and he had on white bucs. I had no idea what white bucs were. That night Mr. (F. Leighton) Peters had a little get-together in his apartment. I walked in and several others were wearing white bucs. Nobody else wore blue suede shoes. And that was the beginning. It was just kind of a culture shock.”

In the early 1950s, Mike’s hometown had a population of 38,000 residents within one square mile. Though the density of the city fostered toughness, his tight-knit family was loving and supportive. When Mike was eight, his father, Ralph, succumbed to lung cancer at age 44, but not before making a key decision: He established a substantial life insurance policy to be put toward his son’s education. After Ralph passed, his only college-educated friend, Frank Rinaldi, became close to Mike and his mother, Florence. Frank’s son (Roger Rinaldi ’49) had attended Peddie, and when Mike was old enough, Frank encouraged him to apply. Florence, seeing an opportunity for her son to escape the provincial world he’d always known, wholeheartedly endorsed this. He applied and was accepted.

“It was my father’s foresight,” said Mike. “I don’t remember much about him, but I certainly heard a lot of stories about how important education was to him. He had a fourth-grade education, as did my mom. He wanted me to have whatever education I could achieve.”

But the kid from the West New York streets didn’t feel lucky at first. Peddie’s diverse student body and worldly perspectives were jarring for the homesick teenager. Mike credits his sympathetic teachers and mother’s fierce love for him staying enrolled at Peddie.

Mike credits several faculty members with helping him adjust to life at a boarding school. “If it hadn’t been for the faculty I don’t think I would have made it through the first week. What was remarkable when I look back is that, with all the opportunities at Peddie, whether it be academic, athletic — I excelled at absolutely nothing. So, it wasn’t like they were looking at this kid who was a diamond in the rough. And they still took an interest in me.”

After graduation, Mike went on to earn a Bachelor of Science in economics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, followed by an MBA at New York University. He retired from a long and successful career at Goldman Sachs, where he was first an analyst in their research department, then head of global research and finally CEO of their asset management division. But the realization that his success was largely due to Peddie’s influence came soon after his college graduation.

“It slowly hit me after I left Peddie how important it had been to me,” he said. “You kind of look back and think about how you got where you were. And there’s no way I would have gone to Penn or N.Y.U. I wouldn’t have wound up at Goldman Sachs. West New York had a lot of people, but was a very small place. Our neighborhood was even a much smaller place, and that was my world. Peddie opened my eyes.”

In Mike’s last year at Goldman Sachs, while interviewing candidates for a new position, he met Peddie alumnus Tom LaCosta ’78. When Mike told Tom about his imminent retirement, Tom asked him if he’d be interested in joining Peddie’s investment committee, which manages Peddie’s endowment. Mike agreed, and shortly afterward he became co-chair of the investment committee with Linda Marshall ’81. In 1996 Trustee Terry Christensen ’62 invited him to join the board. Being back at Peddie the second time around was “pretty emotional” for Mike.

Being back on campus and building a new rapport with the Peddie community was so rewarding for Mike that he was moved to contribute to Peddie financially. “I had mentioned to Finn Caspersen ’59 GP’19 ’20 that I was thinking about a million-dollar gift to Peddie, which would have been my largest gift to Peddie at that point,” he said. “I remember Tom DeGray GP’19 ’20 saying, ‘What would you like us to do with it?’ So I said to Tom, ‘What’s your biggest need?’ And he said, ‘Faculty housing.’ So I said, ‘The answer is faculty housing.'”

His first major gift went toward the construction of Armellino Court, a cozy enclave of faculty homes just east of Peddie Lake, and was soon followed by a second gift to expand Armellino Court. He made subsequent gifts to benefit the Caspersen History House, the Annenberg Science Center and the Ian H. Graham ’50 Athletic Center. Another gift created the Armellino Quad, a place for students to rest and reflect before taking up their labors anew, located on the former site of Kerr Dormitory.

Mike has been a class gift planning chair since 2000 and a Bell Society member since 2004. In 2007 he received the inaugural Thomas B. Peddie Award, the school’s highest honor, for extraordinary service and loyalty to the school. He is one of only five recipients to receive it.

When asked what makes Peddie a worthy investment, Mike doesn’t hesitate: “The kids.” It’s for this reason that, in 2013, he endowed the Armellino Scholars Program, which recognizes students with exceptional academic achievement, demonstrated strength of character, marked intellectual curiosity and infectious excitement for life. Mike proudly witnessed the first two Armellino scholars, Regan Cook ’19 and Daniel Funderbirk ’19, receive their diplomas in May along with his grandson Matthew Armellino ’19.

“In my small way, what I hoped to do was attract highly qualified kids who, years down the road, would be able to come back and make substantial contributions to the endowment, and that way increase access to Peddie for all kinds of kids who are qualified. No matter where they came from, what size, color, shape, gender they were — we would be able to admit those kids into Peddie. And that was the genesis of the scholarship program.”

Mike stays in touch with the Armellino scholars by phone and by visiting campus frequently to have dinner with them. He also welcomes them and their parents to his home on Long Beach Island, N.J.

“To me, it’s all about the kids. I just love spending time with them,” he said. “All I do is write a check. That’s the easy part,” he asserted. “But what they do for me is irreplaceable.”

Mike emphasized that an emotional connection to Peddie is critical in order to keep it moving forward and that true, lasting connections can’t happen at a distance.

“I just want to be sure that Peddie is there and is strong so that it can provide for kids for a long time in the future,” he said. “I don’t think we can do that unless we have kids who have the wherewithal to give back, the inclination to give back and the loyalty to Peddie. To somehow infuse in them the idea that Peddie was important to whatever success you had in life. I’m not just talking about financial success at all. Giving back isn’t necessarily just giving back financially. What I think will really get people going is that emotional connection. And the only way to do that is to get them on campus and mix with the students.”

With the benefit of a wider perspective, Mike acknowledges how his powerful foundation at Peddie set him on an extraordinarily successful path. He urges those who love this school to recognize the potential in Peddie and its students, as his parents and teachers did for him, with equal parts foresight and conviction. He’s honored to take up his father’s mantle and give to the next generation of Peddie students. And he wants the common thread throughout the Peddie community to be “we’re in this thing together.”