3 minute read
There and Back Again
There and Back Again
CFO Eugene Munin’s Path to AMU
Recently, AMU Magazine sat down with AMU’s Vice President for Finance and Administration, Eugene Munin. As with all of the members of the University Council, AMU’s executive management team, Gene has a brilliant and impressive past. With his Catholic pedigree (attending Catholic institutions from primary school through a doctorate) and innate personal attraction to higher learning (five advanced degrees… and counting?), we’re so glad to have him here.
Gene Munin first came to Ave Maria in 2011 to serve as Budget Director for the University and as an adjunct professor at Ave Maria School of Law. This move came on the heels of successful stints in law and finance where he worked both in private legal practice, as a criminal prosecutor, and Budget Director for the city of Chicago under Mayor Richard M. Daley. After the worst budget crisis in Chicago since the Great Depression, Daley retired from public office, and Munin was poised to explore his next career move. That next step was to AMU.
That first stint in Ave wasn’t to last long, however. Gene’s wife, Kristin, a police sergeant in Chicago nearing a full pension and therefore needing to remain employed on the force, stayed in Chicago, and the two went back and forth between Chicago and Ave Maria while she finished up her career and he settled into his new position. This arrangement was short-lived. Shortly after Munin undertook his new responsibilities, Kristin became pregnant with their first child. Gene decided to resign his position at Ave, return to Chicago in 2012 for the birth of their son, Michael, and support Kristin through the completion of her career.
The family continued to grow with the birth of Margaret in 2014— who died hours following birth from Trisomy 22— and Maeghan in 2016. The couple decided to eventually relocate to Ave Maria to raise their kids in the peace and security of the small community. To that end, they began construction of their home here, planning to become permanent residents sometime in 2019. In 2017 President Towey came calling upon Munin to return to his CFO duties. It was an offer Gene couldn’t refuse and the Munins moved back to Ave.
The attributes of AMU that originally attracted Gene in 2011 were still a pull in 2017 when he came back for the second time. They continue to inspire in him love for the university and town. “I love the mission of the school and I love higher education, so this is a perfect fit for me,” Munin said. He enjoys laboring together with colleagues with whom he shares both his faith and the noble calling to help students seek truth through a quality liberal arts education grounded in authentic, Catholic faith. These joys temper the daily challenge he faces of allocating scarce resources and controlling expenses to put AMU on a trajectory toward a balanced budget.
The whole family has adjusted well to the move to Ave. Gene himself, in characteristic humility and humor, downplays the challenge by comparison. “In the grand scheme of life, moving from Chicago with its weather, crime, taxes, deficits and politicians to southwest Florida, is not the most difficult challenge that we will face in life. I had a great uncle who left Ireland in his early 20s to become a missionary priest in China during the Communist revolution. He spoke no Chinese until the Columbans taught him. So, in comparison, this move was pretty easy,” he quipped.
There is much that the Munins love about Ave— small-town life, the five-minute commute to work, lunchtime spent together as family, access to a great Catholic K-12 classical education, and Tae Kwon Do and dance studios in town for their children. But Munin cites two drawbacks: the occasional black bear ambling through the neighborhood, and his son’s longing for Chicago’s white winters. “Michael tells me every now and then that he misses snow. I tell him that I will take him skiing in Utah.”
