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Rotary Honor Roll Luncheon

Wednesday,  April 28, 2010  11:30 AM - 1:00 PM

This Year's Speaker:  Mr. Paul Critchlow

Paul Critchlow, counselor to the chairman of Merril Lynch & Company and vice-chair of the firm's Public Markets group since September 2003.  Mr. Critchlow was an 8^th Grade Rotary Honor Roll Student at the 33^rd annual luncheon in 1960 with Monroe Junior High.

Three years after joining Merrill Lynch in 1985, Mr. Critchlow was named senior vice president of Communications & Public Affairs with responsibility for all internal and external communications – a position he held for more than 15 years. An experienced crisis manager, Mr. Critchlow helped direct Merrill Lynch’s responses to the stock market crash of 1987, the collapse of technology stocks in 2000, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

From 1988 through 2006, he served as a trustee, president or chairman of the Merrill Lynch Foundation, the company’s philanthropic arm.

Before joining Merrill Lynch, Mr. Critchlow had an extensive career in journalism and government. From 1978 through 1984, he was press secretary to Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh and Director of Communications for the Commonwealth. In 1979, he helped direct Pennsylvania’s response to the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. From 1972-1977, he was a reporter and award-winning chief political writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Currently, Mr. Critchlow serves on the corporate advisory board of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, in Washington, DC; the board of the High Mountain Institute, a leadership program for high school students in Leadville, CO; and the board of the George Gustav Heye Center of the National Museum of the American Indian, in New York.

Mr. Critchlow majored in English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he played fullback on the Cornhuskers’ varsity football team and was a member of the track squad. His studies were interrupted from 1968 to 1970 by U.S. Army service, including combat duty in Vietnam where he earned a Bronze Star for Valor and Purple Heart. He returned to earn a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1971 at the University of Nebraska-Omaha and a master’s degree in 1972 from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

He and his wife, Patricia McCormick, an author, reside in New York City. They have three children.