Chase Alumni Association

Chase Alumni Association: Season's Greetings

Dear Reader,

At this most wonderful time of year, the Board of the Chase Alumni Association extends its very best wishes for joyous holidays to our more than 1,100 members around the world.

Many of us sent similar greetings on the bank’s holiday stationery while at Chase in the 1970s and 1980s. We’ve adapted it for use by the CAA so that a great tradition will live on. To see how the original letterhead looked, click here.

Since we're borrowing from one holiday classic, we thought we would take a page from Charles Dickens and visit Chase Holidays Past, Present and Yet-to-Come.


Certainly all of us who worked in New York have recollections of “the office Christmas party.” Going way back, the bank sponsored a formal dinner dance for senior officers at a key Manhattan venue. Over the years this single party was replaced by every department and branch hosting its own celebration. Some were loud events, others sedate. Some featured champagne toasts, while others were held in a conference room with soft drinks and homemade cookies.

Wherever the celebration was held and whatever was on the menu, the common denominator was fellowship and good cheer.

Our lobbies were filled with gigantic wreaths and towering poinsettia displays. In the largest of spaces, like Metrotech in Brooklyn, there was a separate display for every December holiday, recognizing and celebrating every faith.

Employees donated toys for less fortunate children, and the auditorium at 1 CMP was transformed into a massive gift-wrapping room. Mailroom personnel and EVPs were often up to their knees in teddy bears, toy trucks and cellophane tape.

Customers and non-customers brought slightly used winter coats to their local Chase branch. The bank had them cleaned and distributed to the needy. The concept was to keep needy New Yorkers warm, but ultimately we were the ones with the warm feelings.

You have to admit…being at The Chase Manhattan Bank in those years was like working for Dickens’s Old Fezziwig!

New York, of course, did not have a monopoly on holiday cheer, as a photo of a Paris branch holiday party from the 1950s, from our online vintage picture collection, shows.


Most of us have long since left the employment of CMB, but we haven’t left our memories and friendships behind. Fortunately, the Chase Alumni Association has helped us to keep in touch. Through our new web site and directory, both launched earlier this year, we are all able to reconnect with other ex-Chasers just by clicking on www.chasealum.org.

The CAA is proud to be able to facilitate these Chase connections. Why not look up an ‘old’ colleague right now and wish him or her all the joys of the season?


If the attendance at the CAA’s October 2006 cocktail reception at 1 CMP is any indication, the future of the Association looks bright. We're resolved to keep the camaraderie alive in 2007.

In addition to our spring and fall receptions in New York and chapter events around the world, we will be offering two very special long weekends: July 12-15 in Bend, Oregon, and October 5-8 in Budapest, Hungary. For more information, click on the stories linked below.

Why not give yourself the gift of fellowship and good cheer by planning to attend one or both of these gatherings? We can all but guarantee that the warm feelings of long ago will come alive once more in the company of Chase colleagues.

In closing, we want to thank you for your continued support of the CAA and wish you and yours Good Health, Happiness and Peace this holiday season and throughout 2007.

The Board of the Chase Alumni Association