NAA President's Letter

DEAR MOUNT ALUMNI,

I am very excited to be writing to you as National Alumni Association (NAA) President. I ran for president because I love the Mount, and I wanted to continue to give back and try to help the Mount be the best it can be. That’s where all of you come in. If you love the Mount as much as I do, we can all do our part to help the Mount be the best it can be. Please advocate for the Mount. Tell everyone you see how special the university is, and how it produces great alumni. Give back to the Mount if you are able, especially to the Annual Fund. It is critical for the Mount to increase the contributions to the Annual Fund in order to remain a viable and competitive institution.

Your NAA plays a critical role in fostering engagement with alumni once they have left our Mountain home, and because you elected us, I hope you feel that we are doing just that, fostering engagement with you. If you have thoughts or ideas on how we can best serve you, please let us know.

I truly believe that the bloodline of the NAA lies within the chapters. As we’ve grown the number of chapters in the past few years, my goal as president is to strengthen the engagement in the current chapters, while looking at ways to engage with alumni who live outside of our current chapter locations. Speaking of chapters, I’m happy to announce our newest, the Delaware/Maryland Beach Chapter. If you live in an area that does not have a formal chapter but would like to form a one and/or have an alumni event, please let us know.

Service is part of the fabric of the Mount, and I’d like to share information about an important event where our alumni can give back. On December 18, the NAA will participate in Wreaths Across America. Wreaths Across America coordinates wreath laying ceremonies at over 2,500 cemeteries across the nation to recognize and honor our veterans. We are working with the chapters to arrange a meeting location for their local cemetery participating in Wreaths Across America. For those of you who may not be in a chapter area, we encourage you to look up a participating location in your area to create a day of service for Mounties across the nation.

One of the things I am most looking forward to is meeting many more of our alumni at events at the Mount and at Chapter events. I was fortunate to finally celebrate my 40th class reunion this past October. It was great to see so many familiar faces and get to know alumni from other classes celebrating at Reunion Weekend 2020/2021. Congratulations specifically to our Golden Mountaineer 50th reunion classes and our Bruté recipients— Cmdr. John Williams Jr., Class of 1965 and Karen Mataldi Dahut, Class of 1985.

In closing, I want all alumni to know that I feel so honored and privileged to be your NAA president. I do not take the responsibility lightly, and I will do my best to engage with you and to live up to your expectations of what a NAA president should be. Spes Notra.