|
Matt Greene,
WG’89:
Seeing a Unique
Opportunity
Vance Hall is a vivid memory
for Matt Greene. “It was
very overcrowded, and from
a tech standpoint, it wasn’t
wired,” says Greene, who
now works as managing director
of the Equity Department
at Utendahl Capital
Partners. Greene was an
MBA student at the time,
and he particularly remembers
the Vance Hall mail
room, located in the basement
of the building: “It
was so full of people you
couldn’t move.”
Greene says that whenever
he and his fellow MBA
students would go to Steinberg
Hall-Dietrich Hall,
they couldn’t help but
compare the two buildings.
“We all thought, ‘What a
building! Why don’t we have
this?’” he recalls.
Since then, Wharton
has broken ground for its
state-of-the-art academic
building, Jon M. Huntsman
Hall. Greene says that when
he learned about the building
he immediately saw a
way to make a difference at
the School. In the spring of
1999, he committed
$150,000 to Huntsman Hall
to name a group study room.
The room will be named
The Greene Family Group
Study Room, and it will
include the names of his
wife, Tita, and their two
children, Matthew II and
Kobi. “Someday, if my kids
go to Wharton, they’ll see
their names in that building,”
he says.
Greene, who has
remained connected to
Wharton by serving on the
Executive Committee of
the Alumni Association,
feels that the option to name
a group study room was
unique for a number of rea-sons.
“As an African American,”
he says, “I feel I have
an opportunity to do something
that my parents could
not do.” Moreover, he adds,
the gift helps to make a difference
in a very concrete
way. “I had never been
exposed to the opportunity
to help make such a tangible
difference,” he says. “We
needed a new building. You
can actually visit it and see
what you’ve helped to make
happen. You can see that
you’re part of something.”
|
