LYNN — Earlier this year, Adolph Graciale became Lynn Tech’s athletic director. One of the many congratulatory messages he received was from his lifelong friend, Ed Calnan Jr.
The two grew up together and went to the same schools, graduating from St. Mary’s. They went their separate ways educationally after that, but stayed in touch. Graciale went into education. Calnan went into business. And four years ago, he co-founded a computer software company called Seismic, which, today, has offices in 11 cities throughout the world.
“We’ve been friends for the longest time,” said Graciale. “He sent me a text congratulating me, and then said what he’d been doing.
“He said he really wanted to give back to the community,” said Graciale. “And the way to do that was to get kids opposed to the Tech world.”
One way to that, they both agreed, was to go to the place where there would be the highest concentration of kids learning technical trades: a vocational school.
“It used to be you had to go to college,” said Calnan, a former football player for the Spartans and a graduate of St. Michael’s College. “But that’s not necessarily true anymore. There are plenty of jobs in the Tech field for kids who might not want to attend college, or be college material.”
Graciale teaches history to seniors and juniors, and also does a document-based questions program too. And even though he, too, is college educated, he has the same questions and feelings as Calnan, especially in light of the cost.
“Is college worth it?” he asks. “To get exposed to different jobs, and talk about different job, you don’t always need the college experience,” he said. “There are certain jobs you can do, and there are different things about the Tech industry, and you can make money … these were things (Ed) was talking to me about. He said he was sure there were kids in the Lynn area who hadn’t heard much about that.”
Graciale was sure Calnan was right. So, they set up a session in October in the Tech cafeteria with Calnan and Marco Montano, who is the senior manager of inside sales at Seismic. Montano worked in the finance industry, but was enticed into the Tech field by a friend who worked at Seismic and, he said, changing jobs helped his career take off.
“I’d never sold anything in my life,” Montano said. “Within a year, I was managing the team my friend had recruited me into.”
“We got the junior class in the cafeteria, and Marco gave a presentation about Eddie’s company, Seismic,” Graciale said. “He also talked about the tech industry itself, how many jobs and opportunities are out there.”
“I told them how you can work in a really cool environment,” Montano said in a podcast about the experience. “You don’t have to wear a suit, tie or carry around a briefcase. You can even wear a hoodie. You don’t have to wear that professional attire.
“The tech fields are changing the face of what you look like, where you work, and how you’re compensated,” he said.
“The biggest thing is to give kids exposure,” Graciale said.
Calnan, who lives in Marblehead now, says it’s even more basic.
“There are a lot of jobs in the tech field that don’t really require the type of skills you’d learn in college,” he said. “There are a lot of sales jobs in my company. You need some expertise, but you have to want to hustle. That makes the difference.”
And, said Calnan, you don’t have to go to college to learn how to do that.
