Deacon Jerry Hickey made the single greatest impact on three years of my life while he was director of Admissions at Franciscan University, and I was a young Admissions counselor.
Jerry had us start each morning with 15 minutes of praise and prayer together in his office, praying for potential students, campus needs, feast days, and so on. I began to feel like working at Franciscan was a real ministry. We always ended that time with laughter as he would read the comic of the day from his Far Side desk calendar. I remember how much he loved to laugh. We had retreats away from campus to prepare for the next recruiting year, and Jerry would listen to me talk about seeing a funny movie about a Red Ryder rifle. He was so charged by a funny story.
He also was a great man of business, having worked for 30 years at IBM before moving to Steubenville with his wife, Virginia, and serving in various leadership roles at Franciscan between 1987–2007. Every year under his direction, we surpassed our personal and team goals for Admissions. He knew how to demand more from us than we knew we were capable of ourselves.
Jerry introduced us to Tom Peters’ A Passion for Excellence series, “showcasing real companies and actionable strategies for achieving outstanding performance through empowered employees and strong leadership, becoming a key guide for business leaders and aspiring professionals.” This passion for excellence became embedded in my heart—and Jerry always made me feel empowered and safe to take risks and strive for better. I still keep a large file filled with thank-you’s from visiting students and parents that he encouraged me to save.
He is also the reason I pursued a master’s in business administration at Franciscan. He simply looked at me one morning and said, “I think you would do great with an MBA!” He must have known my degree in French wasn’t taking me to Wall Street. I enrolled the next semester and never looked back. I would later use that degree to work in customer service at a hospital—a favorite career move in my life. When I interviewed for that position, I was asked to name someone who had influenced my life. To my own surprise, tears welled up in my eyes as I blurted out, “Jerry Hickey.”
All these precious moments threaded together show me how he walked through life—people mattered, were worth his time and his all. That’s what he passed on to me.
After his retirement, Jerry remained active in the local Catholic community for many years, passing away in 2018.
In Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, he highlights the effect one man can have on so many other people’s lives. Today, I have many dear ones, friends and family, who have impacted my life, but none as profoundly as Jerry. He was a life coach, mentor, and guide. I will always thank God for his presence in my life.
May Jerry rest in peace and reap his heavenly reward. I’m pretty sure he is now standing around the water cooler with the saints, telling funny stories. I can’t wait to join him there one day.
Mary Jude (Eustis ’87 MBA ’91) Sushynski and her husband, Mike, have three college-age children and live in Saratoga Springs, New York.
