Our featured Davenport alum this week is John Caserta, Class of ’01!

After graduating from Yale in 2001, Mr. Caserta went on to serve as a risk analyst for Marsh & McLennan. In 2005, John established Caserta & de Jongh, LLC, a financial planning practice and now serves as Managing Director.

Besides staying connected to Yale by sharing his passion for financial literacy and education through his on-campus talks on intelligent financial decision-making, Mr. Caserta also advises for the North Haven Rotary Club and is a member of the Yale Club of New Haven. Mr. Caserta has published articles on finance research and has also given presentations to business owners. Additionally, he is fluent in Italian and has played the trumpet since the age of 10.

Mr. Caserta was generous enough to agree to speak with us over the phone earlier this month, and we are quite excited to share insights from one of our first ever conversations with a Gnomie alum!

DAVENPORT AIDES: Why do you continue to stay involved with campus activities?

JOHN CASERTA: If I think back on it, Yale has been a part of my life since oldest brother started attending. And my middle brother attended, then I attended. In particular I’ve found my niche in doing something I’m passionate about and sharing that with Yale community. For me, there are a lot of different talents and resources in the Yale community. If I think back, I’ve loved every minute. Part of it is nostalgic. Part of it is continuing the experience for current students, and enhancing it by bringing things I’ve learned along the way I wish I knew in college. For me, there’s the accessibility factor. That makes it easy for me to interact with the school and give back to it. It’s about perpetuating the Yale experience for future generations of alums. I have so many [Yale] connections, friends. In fact, my fiance is class of ‘04. She has a lot of connections to the university. If I take a look at the people we know, our lives are intertwined with the University. At the end of the day, I love being on campus. I love my time there. It’s out of the passion I have for Yale. It’s the main reason I interact and give back.

DAVENPORT AIDES: What is your favorite Davenport memory or aspect of the Davenport community?

JOHN CASERTA: Me, my brothers and some of our friends went out to Harvard for The Game, and we were watching the game. It happened to be the year that Yale won. Of course, everybody storms the field, and we’re celebrating. We see an individual with the Davenport flag. And so we’re like, “Yeah Davenport!.” The individual proceeds to throw the flag on the ground and start stomping on it. We didn’t take too kindly to that. Obviously, it was someone from Harvard. A scuffle ensued. Law enforcement was involved. No one got arrested. They wanted to take the flag away because it was attached to brass pole. They didn’t want people swinging a pole in a crowded area. After negotiation with Cambridge’s finest, we came to an agreement that we could take the flag and they could take the pole. We felt pretty good that we were able to take the Davenport flag. It was the start of Thanksgiving break, [so we] held onto the flag. I wasn’t back on campus until classes started again. At which point, Master Thomas had sent out an email saying “Has anyone seen DPort flag? What happened to it?” We were able to meet with Master Thomas [saying] we saved the day. Different classes of DPort alums had come together to save the day.