Alumni Association

Meet the Alumni Association President
Richard Toce '01 E.M.B.A.

As an employee at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft, first at Pratt’s Automated Casting Facility in Middletown, then in the company’s Government Engine & Space Propulsion division in West Palm Beach, Fla., Rick Toce saw employees with college degrees move into the executive ranks. So he moved back to Pratt’s East Hartford facility in 1990, and enrolled at St. Joseph’s College in West Hartford to complete his bachelor’s degree. “I enjoy learning,” says Toce, the president of the University’s Alumni Association. He then enrolled in the University of New Haven’s E.M.B.A. program, finishing in just two years. But he has never really left, becoming a particularly active member of the University’s Alumni Association, serving as vice president of its Alumni Board, and now moving into the leadership position. He also has moved into the executive ranks as finance manager in Mechanical Disciplines at Pratt, developing and managing $110 million in budgets, managing $15 million in capital planning, and maintaining staffing, and has reserved a full-time six-month co-op position specifically for UNH students. “I am just so impressed with the students at the University,” he says. “And there’s no doubt, the E.M.B.A. degree helped me increase my rank at Pratt.”