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May 3, 2023BY BILL DOYLE
CFP CORRESPONDENT
Peter Caparso, a business executive and start-up investor, will deliver the commencement address at Anna Maria College’s 74th graduation on Monday, May 15, at 10 a.m. at the DCU Center.
The college will bestow honorary degrees on Mr. Caparso and posthumously on Sister Carol Proietti, a Sister of St. Anne. Meghan J. Sonia, a senior nursing major from Martha’s Vineyard, will be the student speaker.
On May 13, in the Zecco Performing Arts Center, Anna Maria will hold a social work pinning ceremony at 1 p.m. and a nursing pinning ceremony at 3 p.m. The Baccalaureate Mass will be celebrated in Fuller Activities Center at 5 p.m.
Mr. Caparso is an executive and investor with more than 34 years of experience working with large, mid-size and start-up companies. He is a former resident of Worcester and a graduate of St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury.
Mr. Caparso was U.S. manager for Bibit, a Dutch E-commerce payment company that was eventually acquired by Worldpay. He then oversaw U.S. operations for Adyen, a global omnichannel payment processing company, and secured the business of numerous Fortune 500 companies. In 2015, he partnered with Apax Partners, a London-based private equity and venture capital firm. He went on to become the first U.S. employee of Checkout.com. From 2019 until January of this year, Mr. Caparso served as the executive director and U.S. board advisor for Checkout.com LLC and on the supervisory board for Checkout’s French entity. He holds an M.B.A. from Boston College and a B.A. in Economics from Villanova University.
Sister Proietti taught English, journalism, and literature at schools staffed by the Sisters of St. Anne throughout Massachusetts and graduated from Anna Maria College and Boston College. In the 1980s, Sister Proietti became the first local social concerns director for the SSAs. She later worked in the public relations and alumni offices at Anna Maria and at Holy Name Central Catholic High School. In the 1990s, she became province secretary and communications coordinator. She was a visible figure at the Massachusetts State House for protests against the death penalty and similar concerns. She died on Dec. 21, 2020.
Miss Sonia is a senior nursing major and student athlete. She was captain in field hockey last fall and assistant captain in ice hockey as a sophomore.
COLLEGE OF THE HOLY CROSS
U.S. Senator Peter Welch of Vermont, a 1969 graduate of the College of theHoly Cross, will deliver the commencement address at his alma mater’s 177th graduation ceremony, which begins at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, May 26, at the DCU Center in Worcester.
In addition, Mr. Welch will receive an honorary degree.
Mr. Welch succeeded Bernie Sanders as a Vermont member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006 and replaced retiring U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy this year. He is only the second Democrat to be elected a U.S. senator from Vermont and at age 75 he became the oldest freshman senator in U.S. history.
Mr. Welch has been an outspoken advocate of affordable higher education and a champion of working people in Vermont throughout his career.
Mr. Welch was born in Springfield in 1947 and attended Holy Name Grammar School and Cathedral High School. At Holy Cross, he became interested in politics and became involved in the civil rights movement.
As one of the first Robert F. Kennedy Fellows, he took time off from Holy Cross to travel to Chicago to advocate against racist housing policies that prevented people who lived in black neighborhoods from getting mortgages.
After graduating magna cum laude from Holy Cross with a degree in history in 1969, he enrolled in law school at University of California, Berkeley, and graduated in 1973.
After law school, Mr. Welch settled in White River Junction, Vermont, where he worked as a public defender before founding a small law practice. He was first elected to represent Windsor County in the Vermont Senate in 1980. In 1985, he was unanimously elected by his colleagues to lead the chamber, becoming the first Democrat in Vermont history to hold the position of president pro tempore.
He and his wife, Margaret Cheney, commissioner of the Vermont Public Utility Commission, live in Norwich, Vermont.
“Senator Welch has championed many causes,” said Vincent Rougeau, president of Holy Cross, “that are aligned with our college’s core values – making higher education accessible to people of all socioeconomic backgrounds, stewarding our environment, and engaging in constructive dialogue across differences. We are proud to count him among our alumni.”
Holy Cross will also award an honorary degree to housing and community development leader Rosanne Haggerty. An internationally recognized social entrepreneur and leader in developing innovative strategies to end homelessness, she is the president and chief executive officer of Community Solutions, a non-profit organization she founded in 2011 dedicated to ending homelessness.
She is a graduate of Amherst College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
