Son of Italy

Stock exchange's 'grass roots' top executive leads parade

By BRIAN CAULFIELD

A Wall Street mover and shaker, Richard A. Grasso, was the appropriate figure to lead the line of march up Fifth Avenue in the Columbus Day Parade. The grandson of Italian immigrants, he grew up in the Jackson Heights section of Queens and worked himself up the ladder from the New York Stock Exchange mail room to his appointment in 1995 as chairman and chief executive officer. He is the first NYSE staffer coming through the ranks to hold the position, and also the first Italian-American.

He has headed the exchange through financially lucrative yet turbulent times and is working on a deal with New York City to build a new $1 billion trading floor a block from the NYSE headquarters at 11 Wall St.

Known for his philanthropic works, Grasso, 51, is the executive co-chairman of the Cardinal's Committee of the Laity and last month he was given the Terence Cardinal Cooke Award for his support of programs for children at Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center in the Bronx.

In accepting the award, he said, "It's not what happens at 11 Wall St. but what happens at East 233rd Street," the address of the medical center.

Charles A. Gargano, president of the Columbus Citizens Foundation, which sponsors the parade, said that Grasso "is truly representative of every Italian-American--hardworking and a true American success story."

"He worked his way through the ranks for 30 years to reach the pinnacle of the world of Wall Street," said Gargano, himself an Italian-American from Brooklyn. Gargano is chairman of the Empire State Development Corp. and vice chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The Columbus Day Parade represents not only Italians and Italian-Americans, but all the nationalities that have formed the diverse cultures of America since Columbus landed in the New World. Underlining this theme, Grasso told CNY that the strength of the nation lies in its ability to gather people from many backgrounds and bind them together in a common cause.

Grasso was appointed in 1992 co-chairman of the Cardinal's Committee of the Laity, which gathers leaders from various professions to raise money for charitable works of the archdiocese. He is also a trustee of St. Vincent's Hospital and Medical Center in Manhattan and a former trustee of the Securities Industry Association for Economic Education and Junior Achievement of New York.

Last year he was appointed by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani as co-chairman of Project Smart Schools, which provides computers for public school classrooms. He has been honored by Tomorrow's Children's Fund, Variety--the Children's Charity, the Greater New York Council of the Boy Scouts of America, the National Council of Christian and Jews and the Catholic Big Brothers.

He was named president and chief operating officer of the New York Stock Exchange in 1988. Three years later he was made executive vice chairman, before being appointed to the top position.