Remembering Pearl
It was sage wisdom from a woman who proudly graduated from high school in 1926, when not a lot of women were able to graduate, and who, after the death of her husband, took on two jobs, raised five children, and would eventually become very engaged in the Claremont community.
“She was whip smart — and a fun person to be around,” recalls Chamberlain.
The Pearl Marjorie Chamberlain Scholarship fund will provide meritorious scholarship support to undergraduate students, preferably those from Sullivan County. Students must maintain a 3.0 GPA to be eligible.
“Education was crucial to her; she was tickled when I went off to college,” says Chamberlain. “She was so influential to me; we knew we wanted to name this scholarship after her.”
Chamberlain graduated from UNH magna cum laude with a degree in business administration and went on to earn an MBA in finance from Yale. From there, he began a career in investment banking at JP Morgan — but “stepped off that hamster wheel” to care for his ailing mother around 2000.
The time away from work made him realize he loved Wall Street and following the markets, but didn’t like the sales part of his job.
Soon after, Mark took the opportunity to run the MBA development program at JP Morgan, and after two years in that role, he moved on to become the head of BA and MBA diversity recruiting for the bank. Although he admits he had never done diversity work before, he found he enjoyed it and was successful at it, helping the bank make progress.
From there, he held diversity and inclusion leadership roles at Deutsche Bank and Barclays.
He says his experiences at UNH — from what he learned in his accounting classes, to group dynamics learned as a Sigma Nu brother — helped him find professional success in his career. And it was here, he says, that he got to explore things outside of his business degree.
He and Shin split their time between New York City and his hometown of Claremont. Now retired, he’s involved in a few nonprofit boards and enjoys gardening (“I lived in the concrete jungle of NYC for 27 years!”) and “getting caught up in the pickleball craze.” He’s also writing a few pieces for the local newspaper, the Eagle Times, and hangs out with high school friends still living in the Upper Valley.
Supporting students from the area he’s so connected to was important to him; he says Sullivan County, where his grandmother was born and raised, is traditionally in the bottom half of New Hampshire counties in terms of wealth.
Chamberlain talks candidly about the way he and Shin chose to make this gift — through estate plans. He knows “people get squeamish,” when they start thinking about things like writing a will, making plans for their inheritance or estate and ultimately, thinking about their own mortality.
But he advises to focus on the positive of the process: “Focus on what you’re able to do now, while you’re still able to make all your own decisions, and decide where you want your resources to go.”
He worked with UNH Development staff to create the fund, which will provide opportunities for future students, while honoring someone close to his heart. “It’s really a win-win, once you realize you can do something like this.”