ALUMNI PROFILE Terence McGinnis ’63

Terry McGinnis gazed at the lettering above the door to the lab in the STEM building at St. Mary’s: GEORGE & KATHERINE KEANEY MCGINNIS ’35 BIOLOGY LAB It was hard for McGinnis, a son of Lynn’s Brickyard and proud graduate of St. Mary’s Boys High, Class of 1963, not to get caught up in the emotion of the moment. “There’s a wonderful feeling on this campus,” McGinnis said. “It’s so special to tie my parents to it. My dad never graduated from high school and he has a science lab named for him. That’s something else.” McGinnis’ parents are memorialized at St. Mary’s through a naming gift he provided the school in conjunction with the opening of the STEM building last year. He was looking to make an impact with funds in a directed trust he had set up to honor his parents, and he could not think of a better way than supporting St. Mary’s, where his mother graduated from the Girls High School in 1935. “What impressed me the most is how faith-driven this organization is,” McGinnis said. “In the current environment, to have that be so proudly and unashamedly demonstrated impresses me. You walk around the school and you can see the excitement in the kids and the teachers.” It’s the same feeling McGinnis remembers from his days on Tremont Street, where he spent 12 years under the tutelage of the Sisters of Notre Dame (grades 1–8) and the Sisters of St. Joseph (9–12). He came to the school from a Jewish section of the Brickyard, growing up on Vine Street with three synagogues within walking distance. It was a decision for which he remains grateful 70 years later. “St. Mary’s was a wonderful experience,” he said. “The education was rigorous and there was discipline. We had boys from different economic backgrounds, but everyone got along. It was an accepting environment.” McGinnis was in the classical course of study, taking four years of Latin, three years of French and two years of Greek. He felt ready when he moved on to Merrimack College, where he was a day student while working in the X-ray department at the old Lynn Hospital nights and weekends. “I think St. Mary’s prepared me very well academically and, most important, with the value system,” said McGinnis, who was valedictorian in high school and college. “When you’re in an environment at school that reflects the value system your parents have, that gives you the foundation you need.” In addition to solid values, McGinnis said the faith instilled in him by his parents and St. Mary’s has served him well throughout his personal and professional life. “One of the critical aspects of my teenage years was to be introduced to faith in an emotional and academic way,” he said. “You come back to that foundation of faith whenever you have a crisis in your life. That’s the

most important gift I received from St. Mary’s.” After graduating from Merrimack in 1967, McGinnis entered Officer Candidate School in the U.S. Navy, serving almost four years active duty and 24 years in the Navy Reserve. “The Navy was a life-changing experience for me,” said McGinnis, who achieved the rank of captain, one step below admiral. “It took a kid without a lot of confidence and matured me and toughened me up. It introduced me to people all over the world. That was foundational for me in my later career.” McGinnis earned a master’s at Boston College and a law degree from B.C. Law School and worked as an associate counsel in Washington, D.C. for a Congressional committee chaired by U.S. Rep. Joseph Moakley. His office was in the Capitol building. “For a kid from the Brickyard, it doesn’t get much better than that,” he said. McGinnis embarked on a lengthy career in the legal side of banking, starting in the law department at Bank Boston and surviving mergers with Fleet Bank and Bank of America. He was serving on the board of North Shore Medical Center when the chair, Stan Lukowski, who was CEO of Eastern Bank, asked if he would be interested in becoming general counsel at Eastern. McGinnis accepted and guided Eastern through several mergers and acquisitions, leaving in 2016 when Gov. Charlie Baker appointed him Massachusetts Commissioner of Banks. In 2018 he joined Nutter, McClennen & Fish, where he is senior of counsel. In November, McGinnis received the E. Augustus Holyoke, M.D. Award from Salem Hospital in recognition of his long-time service to the healthcare needs of the North Shore. He served on the hospital’s Board of Trustees for 24 years and remains chairman of the board of the North Shore Physicians Group. McGinnis, who lives in Lynn, refers to himself as “an old Irish bachelor, despite many novenas by my mother.” He is very close with his younger sister, Susan Lang, her husband, Joseph, (both St. Mary’s graduates) and their four children and three grandchildren. McGinnis’ niece, Katie, is a nurse practitioner and Maura is an ICU nurse. His nephew, Brendan, is a scientist doing cancer research, while Tim works at the Congressional Institute in Virginia. Tim is assisting in the design of the Grotto to the Blessed Mother in the Mosakowski Gardens at St. Mary’s, which McGinnis is also naming for his parents and grandparents, Terence Keaney and Catherine M. (Leydon) Keaney. “With three of them involved in medicine and science, (naming) the science lab made sense,” McGinnis said. “My mother would have loved the idea of having a lab named after her and my father. This lab is special. I owe it all to my parents.” It is a testament to the type of person Terry McGinnis is that three-quarters of a century into his life, he is still making those parents proud.

by Paul Halloran