Most students begin their careers in earnest when they graduate from college. But Ross Mayer ’70 (member, UConn Alumni Association) started his career while he was still in college, selling life insurance policies to students, Storrs residents, and others in Connecticut and New York. He was so good at it that Connecticut General Life Insurance Co. hired him right out of UConn, eventually making him a branch manager in Boston. Ten years later, he set out on his own.
His commitment to learning the business – and to connecting with his clients – defined his career. A full-service financial planner who is an associate of Commonwealth Financial Group, a MassMutual agency in Boston, he recently established a President’s Challenge Award for a UConn economics student in need.
Mayer had made a planned gift to UConn earlier, after he received a diagnosis of terminal prostate cancer. But with the help of a UConn Foundation development officer, who, Mayer says, “really had the kids at UConn at heart,” he created the scholarship to have an impact now, during his lifetime.
“I want to feel good about giving while I’m alive,” he says.
He is philosophical about his situation. “It looks as though my incurable cancer is gone,” he says. “My wife, children, grandchildren, and my business kept me going through it. I have a great clientele, and I never wanted to fully retire anyway, because when you like what you do, why should you retire?”
He has achieved numerous distinctions in the financial field, including Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU), Chartered Financial Consultant, and Certified Financial Planner (CFP), and received a master’s in financial services from the American College in Bryn Mawr, Pa.
A commitment to his family, his clients, and his career evolved into a desire to help others, in this case a UConn student in need.
“It makes me feel good,” he says. “The reason anyone gives money away when they die is to create a memory in the minds and hearts of others. All people should live a better life today. This becomes very obvious when facing the real possibility of premature death. Nobody can count on tomorrow.”
For more information on supporting a President’s Challenge Award scholarship, please contact the Foundation’s development department.
