Chase Alumni: Happy & Merry Holidays, Frankfurt Photos, More ID Theft

 
 
 
 
  Dear [first_name]:
 
 
# Indicates new articles or articles that have added content
# As is our custom, we will be running an "In Remembrance" list in the end-of-the-year newsletter, to be emailed on Saturday, December 30. The list will include all "In Memoriams" we have published in 2023. If you know of an alumnus who died in 2023 for whom we have not already run a memorial (check the In Memoriam tab on the home page), please send us the name and any details no later than December 26, 2023. Send the information to news@chasealum.org, with the deceased's name in the subject line. Thank you.
 
NEWS & EVENTS (PAST AND FUTURE)                                            
 
# Gene Ret (not pictured), a privacy expert whose 30-year Chase career included privacy work, gives some practical advice on how to avoid and recover from identity theft. Gene has also added something to the article following an alumna's question. Previously, Ret wrote for us on how to reduce spam texts, emails and phone calls.
 
# Click for photos from CAA Frankfurt's 2023 Thanksgiving celebration. The photos are viewable by everyone.
 
 
 
 
 
Click to read 's article "Jamie Dimon’s $4 Trillion Machine: He made JPMorgan Chase the biggest bank in the world. What is it, exactly?" in New York Magazine. Its editors call it "One Great Story" – and it is.
 
Henry Kissinger, who died on November 29, 2023, was a close friend of David Rockefeller and chaired Chase Manhattan's International Advisory Committee from 1977 to 1981 before becoming a "counselor" to the Bank on international relations. Here's a brief look at that relationship, with a much appreciated contribution from alumnus Bill Flanz.
 
# When our "guess the 2023 closing Dow" contest ended on November 15, there was a more than 7,000-point spread between the low (a dismal 30,464.80) and high estimates (a gleeful 37,771.65). The gleeful prediction is looking less pie-in-the-sky after a December surge.
     Our prognosticators came in with an average of 31,696.74 and median of 34,802.89. The close on December 22, 2023 was 37,385.97 (up 80.81points from the prior week, up  2,395+ from the November 15 deadline for submitting estimates and up from 32,417.59 when the contest was announced on October 29). One week to go...and unless there's a major swing in the last week of the year, our jolliest optimist will be the winner of a $500 gift card. 
 
The CAA alumni trip to the south of France for May 1 to May 10, 2024 is sold out. To be added to the waiting list, please contact Andrea at news@chasealum.org (917/554-7800). The nine-night trip will begin in Nice and explore the sights, history, food, wine and living culture of the Côte d'Azur (including Monaco) and parts of Provence. And of course you will make this trip in the best of company – fellow Chase alumni! CLICK HERE for a full itinerary, information about hotels, pricing, "the small print" and other factors that will make it obvious why the package has sold so quickly.  
 
LOOKING FOR INPUT...                                                                                                
# We invite you to submit stories for a new series: Brushes with Greatness. Was there a client or executive with whom you worked at Chase or a heritage bank who might have earned his/her reputation as a mover or shaker? Was the person especially demanding? Did he/she make an effort to put you at ease? Did you learn from the encounter or longer-term relationship or dine out later on the story? Was there a more junior colleague where you saw the sparks that made for a later stellar career? Please send your story to Andrea at news@chasealum.org.
 
# We're always looking for new Lives After Chase (in non-financial areas) and Moments in Bank History. We also welcome new contributions to such existing series of articles as: Ex-Pat Housing, Corruption, Mentors, Bankers in Danger and our newest, Corporate Culture. Please remember to send your story or story ideas to Andrea at news@chasealum.org. As always, you can write something up, or Andrea can interview you and write it up for you.
 
# POLICY CHANGE: We're following up on an alumnus suggestion that when we publish  comments from CAA members, we identify the writers by the years they worked for Chase, Chemical, MHT, First Chicago, WaMu or whatever bank that is now part of JPMorgan Chase. So when you write in, please remember to provide that information.
Many thanks in advance!
 
CAA TECH CORNER WITH DAN ALVAREZ                                  
 
Our new (and definitely youngest) CAA board member, Dan Alvarez, has launched a monthly feature dedicated to defining emerging trends in technology, in plain English. His plan is to address these questions at a "100-level" for Luddites, brilliant (of course) but non-technologically inclined bankers and anyone else in the financial world embarrassed to ask basic questions while looking at the "big picture". 
 
For his third column, Dan is addressing Autonomous Vehicles.  
  • What are the different levels of autonomy in vehicles?
  • Does JPMC have anything to do with autonomous vehicles?
  • How do autonomous vehicles compare with human drivers?
  • Will self-driving cars reduce accidents?
  • What if humans become overreliant on self-driving cars in the future?

Click here to read Dan's takes on these questions. Please note that a survey is included with the column. Your answers will guide his writing of future columns, as to the topics, tone and knowledge level required. (Indeed, this month's subject was the result of an alumnus request.) We would appreciate your response – as we appreciate Dan's offer to provide this Tech Corner for us each month.  

 

EVENT PHOTOS                                                                              
 
 
 

#  An impromptu reunion lunch was held the week of December 13, 2023 at New York's Villa Mosconi. Pictured (L-R) are: Robert Plows; Joe Murphy: Janet Besso Becker; Tom Lynch; Ken Jablon: Tim McGinnis.

Click here for coverage and 99 photos of October 2's Fall CAA NYC reception. (Photos can only be accessed by dues-paying CAA members.) The evening included remarks by Charlie Maikish that should be of interest to anyone who worked in Lower Manhattan or the Brooklyn Exposure Zone on 9/11.

 
CAA Belgium held its fourth reunion on October 13, 2023 in Antwerp. Colette Selfslagh, who is with J.P. Morgan in London, was the luncheon speaker. Everyone can see the photos and links to other stories out of Antwerp.
 
 
 
 
 
 
MOMENTS IN BANK HISTORY                                                         

(And remember...you have friends at Chase Alumni who want to see photos of your  Bank memorabilia! Please send to news@chasealum.org.

#  Object of the Week: We are not posting this because any expressed or implied agreement requires it, but because we want to keep you!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Bank Culture: Values Learned and Retained – We've begun a new series in which alumni articulate how corporate culture shaped the banks they worked at and how corporate culture differed among the banks that are now under the JPMorgan Chase umbrella. We begin with three contributors: Janin Campos, Richard J. Moss and Elease Ruddock.
     Please send your thoughts – or full-blown essays – to Andrea at  news@chasealum.org. Please indicate which bank you worked for and when, and at what stage of your career. Here are some prompts for responses: How were you made aware of expected values, beliefs, behaviors? Were they set at the top or by your more immediate managers? Were they ever challenged in the heat of battle -- or after your bank may have merged with another? Did aspects of the initial culture stay with you always?  
 
BANKERS IN DANGER: The third part of our series now includes a story by Nick Binkley, who found himself in Beirut during the 1975 Lebanese Civil War. The series features our intrepid alumni in hair-raising situations in the Middle East, Asia and South America. Were you ever asked to continue working–or struggling to get out of town–in a war zone or amidst other types of violence? Let us know. Here are links to the stories so far: Part 1 (stories by Bob Aberlin, Ed von Leffern, George Lacen, Alan Delsman, Mariana Abrantes de Sousa) | Part 2  (stories by Geoff Scott, Chris Matlon and Jim Haynes) | Part 3 (story by Thomas Lane and about Frank Ciulla).
 
LIFE AFTER CHASE                                                                          
 
Nick Binkley, one of our best correspondents, is the focus of a recent Pfeffer on Power podcast on Spotify, where he is interviewed by Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Binkley discusses his Chase Manhattan roots and how they helped lead him to a tenure as vice chair of Bank of America. The podcast shares valuable lessons in career building and finding releases from the pressures of stressful work.
 
 
Chase Alumni's leading Amazonian explorer, James Lynch, sent us a link to a new video featuring his participation in death-defying white water canoeing and camping on the Roosevelt River, deep in the Amazon jungle. Such risk for so much breathtaking scenery! Fasten your seatbelt!
 
 
 
 
We've written before about Chase alumnus and  polymath Bob Graboyes, who, while an economics  professor, won the 2014 Bastiat Prize for Journalism, an international award for “writing that best demonstrates the importance of individual liberty and free markets with originality, wit and eloquence.” 
     Graboyes has now left academia and is writing a substack (blog) he has dubbed Bastiat's Window, and it displays that same originality, wit and eloquence over a wide variety of subjects – with numerous references to his experiences at Chase. He published a three-parter entirely related to and heavily laden with Chase Manhattan lore. The first installment is called Fun and Death in Lagos, but you need to register on the site to read it. It's well worth the effort!
IN MEMORIAM                                                                                  

Please send remembrances and news of recent alumni deaths to news@chasealum.org.

John (Jack) Evans Gage, a former senior vice president at Chase who served as CFO of the bank's European operations, died on June 8, 2023 in Henderson, NV, age 76.  

 
 
 
 
 
 

We recently learned of the December 11, 2020 death of Emma Silvera Jordan, at the age of 101. She was an early female vice president at Chase and the senior credit officer for Chase Manhattan Bank Panama in the 1960s and 1970s

 
 
 
 
 

Phillip Knowles Goodwin, 88, died on Cape Cod on February 16, 2023. He served Chemical and Chase Banks for some 38 years, finishing his career as a Regional President of the New York Capital Region.  

 
 
 
 
# The link has been corrected! William (Bill) Mallon, Jr., 
who became a managing director of Chemical Bank at the age of 36 and later a board member, died at his home on Daniel Island, SC, on October 31, 2023. He was 75. He enjoyed a 40-year career in commercial banking,
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Alfredo Salazar, Jr., former General Manager of Chase Manhattan Puerto Rico, Brazil and Argentina, and a leading voice in Puerto Rican society, died on November 11, 2023, at the age of 81.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Longtime CAA member Eshagh Shaoul, 82, died in Vermont on October 28, 2023. Shaoul worked overseas for half of the 24 years he spent at Chase Manhattan. A memorial service will be held in New York at a future date.
 
 
 
 
 
 
John Robert Wenzel, 100, died on October 2, 2023. He worked in Puerto Rico and Manhattan for Chase National Bank after World War II, during which he was truly a member of the Greatest Generation. While he may not have been known to any current Chase alumni, his life was definitely a life well lived, and we wanted to share this In Memoriam, adapted from both an article and death notice that appeared in The New York Times.
 

How Best to Use the CAA Membership Directory                        

 
If you have not done so recently, please update
the information in your profile, so that the CAA and other members would be better able to contact you. Using the Membership Directory is a privilege of dues-paying CAA members.
 
Now get a refresher on how to best use the membership directory to find an individual or
groups of individuals you would like to contact. (Note that only dues-paying members have
access to the directory.).
 
To get to the directory, log in at www.chasealum.org. On the home page menu, click on Membership and then Member Directory.
 
When searching by name, or in any of the other search areas, we advise starting by putting in less information in the search field. For example, if you want to find William Smith, type only Smith in the Search by Name box; if you put in “William Smith” and he is calling himself Bill Smith in his profile, you will not find him.
 
If you want to find members who live near you, enter the city, state or country (or any combination) under Location. The Years at Chase search is very valuable. Type in 1996-2005, for instance, and you will find everyone who worked for the bank (including heritage banks) during those years. You can narrow your search by also typing in a location or job title.

Once you have entered the search words, click on Search at the bottom of the page. When members’ names appear, click on their names to obtain more detailed information about them.

If you have any problem with any of this, contact Ken Jablon at jablonkt@aol.com.

As always: If the links do not work for you, you can always access the latest stories by logging on to CAA's web site.

If you have any questions, please send an e-mail to Ken Jablon or call Ken (during normal working hours) at 212-799-9525.

By the by: Don't forget to explore the rest of the CAA Web site. (www.chasealum.org) Just click on the home page menu buttons to find the news archive, photo album, membership directory, past In Memoriams and benefit information.

 

The Board of the Chase Alumni Association  

          
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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