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Richard Schaeffer '74, Chairman of NYMEX & the New York Mercantile Exchange, Delivers Winter Commencement Address

Richard Schaeffer, Photo by Lisa Helfert

An enthusiastic crowd gathered in Comcast Center on December 21, 2006, to cheer on a brand-new crop of proud Smith School alumni. Richard Schaeffer ’74, chairman of NYMEX Holdings, Inc., and the New York Mercantile Exchange, joined in the congratulations and urged his fellow business school alumni to persevere in the pursuits of their post-graduation goals.

“Like most accounting majors I knew, it was practically pre-ordained that I become an accountant,” Schaeffer told students, recalling when he graduated from the University of Maryland’s business school. But it wasn’t a career that suited him, and Schaeffer spent the next 11 years moving on to a number of different jobs, looking for the one that would click. He was 31 before his first taste of the commodities market. At that moment, said Schaeffer, he knew he had found the arena in which he wanted to work for the rest of his life.


Full story with photos and transcripts:
http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/news/stories/2006/graduation-winter.html