Life After Chase: Jack Caulfield
Making Wishes Come True
It’s
not just a job, but a mission.
Jack Caulfield, a 22-year veteran
of Chase, is in his third year as chief financial officer of the Make-A-Wish Foundation® of New Jersey, which yearly grants wishes to up to
450 children facing life-threatening illnesses.
Having
earned his a degree in accounting at Fordham, Caulfield spent seven years in
public accounting and earned his CPA while at Arthur Young before joining Chase
in 1982. He spent the bulk of his
career in the controller’s office, with stints in Institutional and Global
Banking. He was director of
financial accounting and reporting in the early-to-mid 1990s. Among his colleagues in controller’s
were Erich Augustin, Tom Brennan, Les Stevens, Mike Esposito, Dick Fama and
Dave Morris. “When the Chemical merger was finalized, I left and went into the
retail side of the Bank, where I worked for John Hehir and Peter Schleif. Then I joined the Small Business Financial
Service group under Joe Scharfenberger,” he recalled.
“I
look back at the years I spent at Chase with fond memories and utmost respect
for the people I worked with,” the 58-year-old Caulfield said. “When I started
with the finance group in the 1980s, it was a very tight knit group. I knew most of the finance people in
the firm within the first few years I was there and saw them as true
professionals. I learned a lot
from those people: technical skills, discipline in planning, and making sure
you were doing things with the highest level of integrity and honesty.
“While
I still use the skills developed at Chase, my current work environment is
entirely different. I enjoy it no
end, working with people who are committed and passionate. They tend to be much younger – people
who are a few years out of college – but there are a few that have been here
for 10 to 15 years. There’s a lot
of energy. And the CEO: I don’t
have to have a cup of coffee in the morning. He comes in and he’s a whirlwind and gets everybody
motivated.”
In
2004, at the time of the merger with BankOne, Caulfield was offered a package
and retired as a senior vice president. “Retirement coincided with my taking on
the chairmanship of the board at St. Peter’s Prep in Jersey City, my alma mater
as well as the school that my dad and two sons attended,” Caulfield said. “That
kept me busy for six years, with my term expiring in June 2010.”
Following
his years at Chase, he hooked up with an old friend who owned a small N.J.
public relations/marketing/advertising firm and was looking for someone to come
in and run the office while he could bring in new business. Caulfield worked
for the firm four days a week, giving him time not only for his St. Peter’s
Prep duties but also for his wife, Mary Beth and two sons, Edmund and
Christopher.
One
of the people at the firm was the then wife of the CEO of Make-A-Wish
Foundation of New Jersey. The wife
told him the CEO was “looking for a finance guy.”
“I’d
actually known Tom Weatherall, the CEO, growing up in Jersey City,” Caulfield
said. “I felt I’d accomplished all that I could at the marketing firm, so I met
with Tom in June 2008 and started the new job in mid-July.”
“As
Tom often says ‘We want to act like a business but with the heart of a charity’,”
Caulfield said. The N.J. group
ranks in the top five of the 68 Make-A-Wish Foundation chapters in the United
States and raises $5.5-6 million annually.
Working
at a relatively small not-for-profit, Caulfield finds himself completing
day-to-day tasks that he hadn’t done since very early on in his career.
On
the other hand, he has taken on a lot of responsibility for long-range
strategic planning and the building and financing of a new “Wish House”,
expected to open this fall in Monroe Township, NJ. Both activities have him working with other business
professionals and board members from the finance world and entrepreneurs.
The
new headquarters will lengthen Caulfield’s commute, but it will provide important
space for families, volunteers and employees.
“The
bulk of the Wish House is intended for the kids,” he said. “The house will permit the 'Wish' kids to
really use their imaginations and fully understand the possibilities of a wish.”
Caulfield
also has some responsibilities for HR.
“We currently employ 22 people, including two part-timers - One of whom
is Marie Rega a former Chase HR professional. We have more than 300 volunteers – most of whom have an
affiliation with the organization through relationships with family or friends of
people who had a ‘Wish’ child or other Foundation volunteers” he explained,
noting that with the move to Monroe County, NJ, there may be an additional pool
of volunteers from the large senior community there.
“Volunteers
fill a number of crucial roles,” Caulfield said. “We use very few volunteers
for day-to-day activities, but we rely on them heavily for outreach to our 'Wish'
children and their families.”
The Make-A-Wish Foundation’s national office, based in Phoenix, has specific
requirements to certify the eligibility of “Wish” children, aged two and
one-half to 18 and facing a life-threatening – though not necessarily terminal –
illness.
A
volunteer is then assigned as the interface with the family, “visiting the
child to ask the magic question: ‘What would be your fondest wish?’” Caulfield
explained. “We do a pretty rigorous training program with the volunteers – an
intensive initial course and then refreshers. We want to insure that they are prepared to deal with this
crucial interaction.”
“The
greatest number of requested wishes involves travel, especially to Disneyworld.
Some of the trips are exotic, such as for the children who wanted to go to World
Cup matches in South Africa. Some
of the basic non-travel wishes are having a bedroom made over, going on a spree
at a mall, getting a computer or having a playground built in the backyard.” The average cost per wish fulfilled is
$7,500, with several vendors – including Disney – providing special rates to
assist the Foundation in funding as many wishes as are in the pipeline.
Many
wishes are “experiential” – meeting some sports or other celebrity. Caulfield said that the New York Jets
and Giants are “exceptional” to the Foundation, and the chapter has formed a
real bond with TV’s “Cake Boss”, Buddy Valastro of Hoboken, NJ.
Many
families defer the wish until the child’s treatments are finished, so they are
in better health to enjoy it, while others travel mid-treatment to take them
out of the day-to-day grind of medical care.
“Illness
creates a tremendous strain on parents and siblings, with many siblings seeing
how much time is being given to a brother or sister and asking, ‘When will I
get this kind of attention?’ That’s why a family trip can be so valuable,”
Caulfield said.
“I
don’t get to see the kids as much, since I’m on the administrative side, but
when we do recognition events and fund-raising, such as our big event on June
17 at the Hyatt in Jersey City, it’s really rewarding to interact with the 'wish'
children and their families,” Caulfield said.
“For
events, be they a walk or a fund-raiser at a bar or a reception for major
contributors, it’s all hands on deck.
We all pitch in. I take off
my finance hat and work on everything from the set up to the clean up. And it’s not just the people who work in
our office, but their husbands, wives, kids. You see, for all of us our mission – granting the wishes of
children with life-threatening illnesses – is everything."