Kevin Egan '95
In honor of his parents’ dedication to faith and education, as well as his father’s 60th reunion, Kevin Egan ’95 established the Joan and Richard W. Egan ’61 Scholarship.
“They were thrilled,” Kevin says of how his parents reacted when he told them about the scholarship.
They loved the idea of supporting Holy Cross and the idea of making a practice of giving and staying close to the communities that helped shape us.
The scholarship will support either students from Archbishop Stepinac High School (the all-boys Catholic school Richard attended in White Plains, New York) or students from underserved communities in and around Boston. Joan and Richard reside in California now but have East Coast roots, having raised their five children in Wellesley, Massachusetts, after meeting in New York.
In setting the scholarship criteria, Joan and Richard felt it was important to give back within the communities that impacted their family, Kevin says. They also wanted to help socioeconomically diverse students access a Holy Cross education, which in turn enriches the entire College community.
In his own professional life, Kevin, who lives in the San Francisco Bay area, has seen firsthand the enduring value of his liberal arts education. He has made his career in technology sales for cloud computing pioneers like Salesforce, Dropbox, Slack and most recently Atlassian, where he is head of global enterprise sales. He hopes the scholarship enables others to benefit from learning the same kinds of highly transferable skills he developed at Holy Cross.
An English major, Kevin says critical thinking and effective communication skills — fostered through a liberal arts education — have served him well and given him the tools to adapt. “No one company or person is the same, so if you’re talking to a lot of different people throughout the day about their business problems and how you’re going to solve them, you have to be thinking with a pretty broad perspective,” he reflects. “In the world of sales, which is so largely dependent upon communication, having been an English major has also been very supporting.”
Kevin says both he and his father, a fellow English major, have been particularly impressed with how Holy Cross has evolved over the years. “A Holy Cross education is one of the best in the world,” Kevin says. “You’re getting an elite education, but it’s a more thoughtful approach — there’s also this commitment to helping the communities around us.”
Working with Holy Cross to create the scholarship was an easy, flexible process, Kevin shares. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. The College helps you think through what’s important to you.”
Kevin’s parents continue to emphasize faith and education for their entire family, which now includes eight grandchildren. “Those two things are very important to them,” Kevin says. Through the Joan and Richard W. Egan '61 Scholarship, more students will have access to a transformational education from Holy Cross, where they can acquire skills that help them harness their talents and make an impact. “It’s such a rock solid group of people who attend Holy Cross,” Kevin says. “And when they go out in the world, they think more broadly than just about themselves.”
