Mickey Greene ’72 climbed the corporate ladder from the bottom to the top and hit every step in between. He started his career as a service representative at Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and retired as a top executive at TD Banknorth, where division presidents reported to him.

But his success wasn’t what mattered most, he says; it's important to him to help others move up, too.

"Regardless of how hard you work and how fortunate you may be, everyone needs somebody somewhere along the line to give you a break," he says. "I’ve had a couple of people like that in my life and I always wanted to return the favor. You’ve got to give back."

It’s that line of thinking that keeps Greene, now chairman of the university’s board of trustees, connected with Southern New Hampshire University.

Greene had just left the Navy and was working in sales at Blue Cross and Blue Shield when he was told he would need a college degree to be promoted. He had started a family and was working full time when he enrolled in the university’s continuing education program in Portsmouth. Greene was promoted to district manager at Blue Cross shortly after graduating. He thrived with the company; when he left, he was chairman, president and CEO of BCBS Maine.

Now he is in a position to work for the good of the university that helped him.

"This place gave me an opportunity that I desperately needed," he says. "I never forgot that."