FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MANHATTAN COLLEGE NAMES OIL INDUSTRY VETERAN THOMAS O’MALLEY AS NEW CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

RIVERDALE, N.Y. – Thomas D. O’Malley, chairman of Premcor Inc., one of the largest independent petroleum refiners in the United States, has been named chairman of the board of trustees of Manhattan College. The appointment will take effect as of July 2005. Mr. O’Malley will succeed Dr. John P. Lawler, who has served as board chair since his appointment in 1993 and who will complete his final term as a trustee in June.

As the newly appointed chairman, Mr. O’Malley plans to focus on the continued development and improvement of the College community as a whole. “As chairman of this board, my objective will be to continue the positive development of Manhattan’s intellectual and physical environments,” said Mr. O’Malley. “I will focus on strengthening the school’s financial resources, especially its endowment, by generating greater participation of its alumni and benefactors.”

“In the many years that I have known Tom, he has served as a catalyst focused on the College’s future,” said Brother Thomas Scanlan, president of Manhattan College. “As a member of the board of trustees, Tom has stood out as a genuine and dedicated leader.”

Dr. Lawler, along with many of his colleagues at the College, is pleased that Mr. O’Malley will become the new chairman. “He has a tremendous background and most importantly, knows the College very well,” said Dr. Lawler. “He is a wonderful selection as a leader for the College.”

 “Tom brings to Manhattan College a wealth of knowledge and experience, both with the business world and with academia,” said Robert La Blanc, college trustee and president of Robert E.

La Blanc Associates. “His success in founding and developing Fortune 500 companies has given him an in-depth understanding of both the needs and difficulty of producing graduates who can be successful in life.”

Mr. O’Malley, who graduated from the College in 1963 with a degree in business administration and economics, has been a longtime benefactor of the College and has played a key role in its recent growth. As a member of the College’s board of trustees from 1987 to 2002,

Mr. O’Malley was a major catalyst and visionary in moving Manhattan toward launching its largest capital campaign in the Riverdale institution’s more than 150-year history. The College recognized his outstanding business leadership with the 1994 De La Salle Medal.

“Tom is a unique individual – highly successful business executive, visionary on higher education’s role in society and a graduate of Manhattan who clearly loves the institution,” said John L. Paluszek, trustee emeritus and chair of the search committee.

In 2002, Mr. O’Malley and his wife, Mary Alice, were honored at the College’s dedication of the Mary Alice and Tom O’Malley Library. Through a gift of $7.5 million, the largest in the College’s history, the entire College community can enjoy a state-of-the-art, fully equipped library that has become a technology hub on campus with its 24-hour Internet café and numerous technology upgrades.

In his dedication speech at the time, Mr. O’Malley reiterated his commitment to education and to alma mater. “I believe Manhattan College and schools like Manhattan are at the core of the country’s ability to succeed. Ethics here is not just a three-credit course in a 130-credit program. But rather it’s a core value in everything that goes on at Manhattan College,” he said at the library dedication ceremony.

The majority of his career has been in the energy business.  In February 2002, O’Malley was named chairman and chief executive officer of Premcor Inc., a Fortune 500 Company with sales of $15 billion.  He currently serves as chairman of the board for Premcor. 

Prior to his involvement with Premcor, Mr. O’Malley was named chairman and chief executive officer of Tosco Corp. in 1990, when the company owned one oil refinery on the West Coast of the United States, employed 1,100 workers and had sales of $1.8 billion. During his tenure, Tosco blossomed into the largest independent refiner and marketer of petroleum products in the nation, with sales exceeding $24 billion and more than 25,000 employees. Fortune magazine listed Tosco as the 72nd largest company in the United States in 2000. In 2001, Phillips Petroleum merged with Tosco, and Mr. O’Malley retired for a brief period.

Before Tosco, Mr. O’Malley was vice chairman of Salomon Brothers, Inc., and president of Salomon’s energy subsidiary, Phillip Brothers Energy Inc.

He has dedicated much of his time to community organizations and philanthropic causes. In addition to serving on the College’s board of trustees, Mr. O’Malley also served as a Trustee of Boston College, the Brunswick School of Greenwich, Conn., the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greenwich, Conn., St. Joseph’s Hospital in Stamford, Conn. and Riverview School in East Sandwich on Cape Cod, Mass.

Mr. O’Malley and his wife of 40 years, Mary Alice, are residents of Greenwich, Conn., and have four children and four grandchildren.

Manhattan College was founded in 1853 upon the Lasallian heritage of excellence in teaching inspired by St. John Baptist de La Salle. Manhattan College is an independent, Catholic, coeducational institution of higher learning offering more than 40 major programs of undergraduate study in the areas of arts, business, education, engineering and science.

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