cConnon’s hardscrabble early days did not foretell a successful life. His father was an only child, orphaned at 16. He served as a Tank Commander lieutenant in Patton’s Third Army, 16th Armored Division. He worked in the insurance industry, moving his family around from Brooklyn, N.Y. (where McConnon was born) to Queens to Levittown and, ultimately, to Lynchburg, Va. He was rarely home and, according to McConnon, seldom really present. McConnon’s mother, whom he describes as “pure Czechoslovakian,” was the daughter of a coal miner and one of 11 siblings. In the late 1920s, her family was evicted from their home in the company-owned coal-mining town of Shoaf in western Pennsylvania, when John L. Lewis called the famous coal miner’s strike. McConnon’s mother and father met under the large globe in Flushing Meadows at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, a romantic touch in a union later sorely tested. McConnon admits that he was a handful as a boy because his father was seldom around. “They sent me off to a Catholic boarding school, where I benefited as much from the context as the education. They took care of me.” McConnon moved with his family to Lynchburg, where he attended E.C. Glass High School his last two years before college. “My academic performance was good, but not great, and I yearned to leave home. It got so bad in the summer of 1961 that I ran away from home for three months, hitchhiking 800 miles back to New York City at age 16 and staying with friends for almost three months. No one called to ask how I was doing. The experience hardened me, put a chip on my shoulder, and told me that I had to survive in the world on my own, by myself. No one was going to be responsible for me but me. At that point I became a man, somewhat flawed, but a man. Or at least I thought so. I only started growing up at Roanoke College three or four years later.” At E.C. Glass, McConnon softened what he calls his “tough guy New York edge.” He ran track,
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“I had deluded myself into thinking that I was just a self-made person, but the more I thought about it, the more I appreciated what Roanoke did for me. I owe a lot to that place.”
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developed good relationships and stabilized himself. After high school, McConnon headed off to a small college in Missouri (Tarkio College), which folded a few years later. Determined to become a veterinarian, McConnon got good grades at Tarkio and later gained acceptance as a transfer into the Class of 1966 at Roanoke. McConnon’s Roanoke years were tumultuous yet growth-inducing. He majored in biology, and minored in chemistry; he tutored classmates in math, biology and chemistry. He loved psychology (“Dr. [Karl W.] Beck was phenomenal.”) and history (“Dr. [Harry E.] Poindexter was great.”). And he says that English professor Matthew Wise taught him how to write. McConnon held down several jobs to pay his college bills, as he had no financial support from family after his second year. “I did a little of everything from selling sandwiches in the dorms to working for a firm that delivered the campus laundry and dry cleaning,” he said. He also ran track – fast. A top sprinter, he ran anchor on Roanoke’s champion 4 x 100 relay team. (Morris Cregger ’64, current chairman of Roanoke’s Board of Trustees, ran on that same relay team.) McConnon loved his fraternity, Kappa Alpha Order, but turned down leadership roles. “I was feeling sorry for myself. My loans were piling up, and I didn’t want the extra responsibility,” he said. In addition to his personal trials, McConnon shared the uncertainty of college men around the country during those years. “The Vietnam War was raging, and none of us knew where we would
GARY EDE
“I bought two coffees – one with milk, one without – and three pastries. What would you like?” asked Shaun McConnon ’66, directing me into the kitchen after a quick tour of his home. Nice touch, I thought to myself, not knowing what to expect next from this immensely successful high-tech security entrepreneur. After settling down in the living room, McConnon, with some prompting, began to tell how a man like him got to be a man like him, despite all odds.
Shaun McConnon in 1991 at Sun Microsystems in Australia. At the time, McConnon was working as managing director.
Roanoke College Magazine