JOHN CROCKER, BROWNE & NICHOLS ’73: Lessons Learned Inside and Outside the Classroom Walls

by Roger Fussa

Finance professional John Crocker ’73 has a deep understanding of many things. That includes how planned gifts can allow donors to make charitable contributions while receiving immediate tax deductions and ongoing income. John knows about these gifts because he has had one at Harvard University, where he earned his B.A. in economics and an MBA. Recently, John established a charitable gift annuity (CGA) at BB&N, a type of a planned gift that provides him with fixed income for the rest of his life.

John has made outright gifts to BB&N for 23 consecutive years and now, 100% of his CGA’s face value counts toward his 50th reunion class gift. John will also give by serving on the reunion committee, work he knows from previous reunions. John attributes his loyalty to what he learned at B&N from teachers and mentors, classmates and friends. Contributing to his learning, he explains, were students with “a unique mix of backgrounds, attitudes, and experiences” relative to other independent schools.

In explaining his giving, John also mentions rowing, discipline, and legendary athletic director Jack Etter ’49. Tall, lanky, and long limbed, John left B&N with an oarsman’s build. That was providential because he characterizes himself in high school as athletically incompetent with zero ball skills. Laughing, John offers this: “I always say just throw a ball at a person, and if they can’t catch it, they should be a rower if they’re over a certain height.”

Added to his physique, John had the affable, team-oriented temperament highly suited for rowing. What he lacked entering the 9th grade—discipline—Mr. Etter readily provided. Mr. Etter “would tell you if he thought you were underperforming,” John recalls, adding: “Good coaches do that and they hold you accountable, but they also encourage you.” And at Bivouac, John received a life lesson in toughing it out as hurricane weather created a sea of mud worthy of a WWI battlefield. Without fires, the students ate out of cans, but, as John says, “when you’re with a group of people, you figure it out, and you get through it.”

At Harvard, a severe inner ear disease might have ended his rowing if not for this well-developed resilience and discipline. Along with that grit, John navigated Harvard with a keen appreciation of relationships. He made many friends and recalls one of them complaining, “I hate to walk through Harvard Yard with you because it takes 45 minutes, and it should take five.”

After graduation, John interned at Cambridge Associates where he learned about private equity, which became a lifelong avocation. John describes his career as a “zigzag roller coaster,” and stops have included managing directorships at Fortune 500 financial services firms, managing money, and co-founding a private funds advisory. While John would have plenty to share about finance in a talk with BB&N students, he might emphasize this: “Always be friendly to everybody and anybody because you can learn from them, and, hopefully, they will learn a little bit from you.”