Jack Palazzi is a writer for the Mountain Lakes Alumni Association. He graduated from Providence College in May of 2019 with a bachelor's degree in Finance. Jack grew up in Mountain Lakes where he attended school from Kindergarten through 12th grade. At Mountain Lakes High School, he served as class president his junior and senior years, and simultaneously co-captained the track team and an undefeated State Championship football team in 2014. Jack's interests include spending time with family and friends, as well as sports, film, politics and history. He currently resides in Mountain Lakes along with his parents Chris (MLHS '78) and Nancy (MLHS '82), and siblings Nick, Matt, and Kendall.

This past spring, Laker Alumni John and Jake Spagnola had the opportunity to visit their former Mountain Lakes football Coach Patrick Natale at Morgan Stanley in New York City.

Herd Coach with ML alumni John and Jake Spagnola.

Mountain Lakes Alumni John and Jake Spagnola with HERD Coach Pat Natale (center) at Morgan Stanley

John Spagnola, who recently graduated Penn State with a degree in Biomedical Engineering, played FB/LB for the 2013 State Championship 12-0 HERD team. He will be working in a Sales & Trading role at JP Morgan’s Investment Bank. Jake Spagnola will be a senior next year pursuing a degree in Econ, also at Penn State. He played RB/LB for the 2015 HERD. Jake will be graduating in Spring 2020 and will be working under Coach Natale in a Wealth Management Capital Markets internship role this summer.

As part of the Penn State Asset Management Group (PSAMG), John and Jake were able to bring PSAMG into the financial world of NYC. PSAMG gives Penn State students of all backgrounds the opportunity to obtain and refine the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in positions on Wall Street and the financial markets, in addition to other career paths like consulting. They are dedicated to not only advancing their members’ initial interest in the financial markets, but helping them reach their ultimate career goals.

They are broken down into three sectors: Commodities & Derivatives, Equity Research, and Fixed Income and Currencies. Each sector holds bi-weekly meetings for analysts to learn a wide range of information pertaining to that specific sector and the financial environment as a whole. The most driven sector analysts advance within the organization through leadership positions within their sector. Their lead analysts conduct research side-by-side with other sector leaders who have worked at top firms across Wall Street. More information can be found on their website psuamg.com and this piece on Penn State’s Student Blog.

On March 30th, PSAMG put together a Wall Street Trip to visit and network with four major banks in NYC, one of which was Morgan Stanley where Coach Patrick Natale runs a Wealth Management Capital Markets team. Coach Natale opened the door for the Laker Alumni and showed them how you can translate that “Win the Day” mentality of the HERD into the workforce. It was a great day for Laker Alumni to bring their college business group to NYC and connect with their former Coach Pat Natale.