Inspiring People to Succeed: Sandy Wolcott ’64

Inspiring People to Succeed

by Joe Sheppard

mong Sandy Wolcott ’64’s favorite teaching tools in the courses on communication and negotiation skills that he led at the University of Rochester’s Simon Business School are his own “Wolcottisms”: adages and aphorisms he’s collected over a 49-year career in banking, from which he recently retired. Much of his outstanding career was spent with JPMorgan Chase & Co., in senior management in the upstate New York region. A four-year student at Lawrence Academy at a time when the school still had a good number of PGs — students who had completed high school elsewhere and came to LA for an extra year of college preparation — Sandy was a three-season athlete, quarterbacking Norm Grant’s football team, playing center on the hockey team, and serving as an attackman on the lacrosse team. Reminiscing about his years at Lawrence, where he “learned how to live with other people,” Sandy recalls that although he wasn’t an academic “standout,” he remembers all his teachers. In a recent conversation, he said they were all there “to help kids grow … and they gave me a work ethic.” In particular, Norm and Catherine Grant were mentors to Sandy; he remembers how Mrs. Grant, who was the headmaster’s secretary, reminded him of his parents’ wedding anniversary and arranged for him to send them some flowers. When Mr. Grant was inducted posthumously into the LA Athletic Hall of Fame, Sandy gave a speech in his honor at the induction ceremony. After graduating from LA, Sandy earned a B.B.A. from Nichols College, and later completed the Executive Program at the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia. Sandy’s people skills, honed through boarding school living, team play, and working as

Aan admissions tour guide, served him well during his nearly five decades in the banking industry in his adopted hometown of Rochester, N.Y. (He was born in Boston, but his family moved to Rochester when he was young.) Nicknamed “The Legend of Upstate” by colleagues in New York City, Sandy was known for his dedication to his clients and a “strong moral compass,” as one CEO put it. His last position before retirement was as vice chairman of Northeast Middle Market Banking at JPMorgan Chase & Co.; previously, he served as president of the Upstate New York Commercial Banking team for 10 years. Sandy’s proudest accomplishment, as he told the“Your attitude Rochester, N.Y. Democrat and Chronicle when he retired, was “building up the is 90 percent customer base to what it is today.” of what people Sandy’s personal warmth and his sense of humor imbue any conversation with him. will remember Those “Wolcottisms” not only served him as a teaching aid, they also inspired his about you.” clients and employees to do their best. With employees, he was a motivator, telling his teams that they were the “secret weapon” for the bank in winning deals. “Remember,” he would say, “no one ever followed a pessimist into battle.” He might add, “Your attitude is 90 percent of what people will remember about you.” Or, urging his employees to just get the job done, he’d tell them, “Don’t tell me how many storms the ship had to go through — just tell me it’s in port.” High on Sandy’s list of “Wolcottisms” is a couplet familiar to any Lawrencian: “To set the cause above renown, to love the game beyond the prize.” Sandy’s employees were his cause; his game, teaching and inspiring them to be the best they could be. From his home in Florida, he can reflect with pride on a job well done and a life well lived.