By Nathaniel Luce
Peter Veruki, former Director of Corporate Relations and Alumni Relations at Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management, passed away on Sunday after a 5-year battle with Cardiac Amyloidosis at his house near Destin, FL. He was 82.
Over 20 years at Vanderbilt, Peter helped generations of business school students realize their career goals, bringing passion, wisdom, and a personal touch to his work. He has been cited by countless alumni as someone at Owen who had one of the biggest impacts on their lives at school.
For Paul Jacobson (MBA’97), Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President of General Motors Co., “Peter was an inspiration to me, and he always gave me good advice, even if it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I owe a lot of my career to the start that he gave me, and I will always remember that.”
His impact often stretched beyond students’ time at Vanderbilt. Peter would host alumni with his wife, Judy Spinella (MBA’93), in their Houston home, check in with graduates during his travels across the country, and offer advice to many as they progressed in their careers. He developed close friendships and went above and beyond to help students in need.
“Peter not only was a mentor to me, but became a lifelong friend to me and my entire family,” said Eric Noll (MBA’90), Chief Executive Officer, Context Capital Partners. “He babysat my daughter, Alexandra, in his office while I had interviews on campus, and when she became an Owen student, Peter mentored her as well. She became friends with both Peter and his lovely wife, who attended Alexandra’s wedding in 2018.”
Peter came to Owen in 1988 at the behest of former Dean Marty Geisel. The two met when Peter was working on Wall Street, recruiting and training MBAs. Dean Geisel, then at the University of Rochester, was looking for Wall Street jobs for his MBA candidates.
“I was impressed with his style, and when he went to work at Owen he called and asked me to come down,” Peter recalled in 2012. “He told me that Owen was too good to be just the best school in the Southeast. He wanted someone to help market the school on Wall Street and in California and Chicago.”
Once at Owen, Peter directed the school’s career center but also set about strengthening Owen’s connections to Wall Street and the broader alumni base, building new internship and full-time opportunities for students. “I’d get out on the road and take students with me,” Peter said. “Traditionally, career centers just sit back and wait for the companies to come to them. We changed all that — we took our students, or at least their resumes, to the companies.” During his time at Owen, the school’s reputation grew from regional to national, due in no small part to his efforts.
Peter left Vanderbilt in 1999 to assume the role of Director of Career Planning and Admissions at Rice University from 1999-2005, but he returned in 2005 at the behest of Jim Bradford, then the acting Dean, to help reconnect with alumni around the U.S. Up until and through his retirement in 2014, Peter brought the same level of enthusiasm and expertise that he did in his first decade at Vanderbilt.
Peter’s efforts made a noticeable mark in the area of finance, where many alumni have enjoyed considerable success, Eric Noll and Paul Jacobson among them. A group of alumni, led by Eric Noll and his wife Georgiana, established a scholarship in Peter’s honor in 2012, which was designated as the Wall Street Scholarship until his retirement. It is now known as the Peter Veruki Scholarship.
His passion and energy were not lost on Owen’s faculty, either. “We stayed in touch after he retired, and he continued to be an important resource for the (Financial Markets Research Center),” said Robert Whaley, Valere Blair Potter Professor of Management. “A couple of years ago, I went to Houston with the purpose of meeting with Accenture to try to place our MSF graduates. Before leaving on the trip, I arranged to meet Peter for lunch. He spent the whole time telling me stories about Owen and its faculty and students — a big smile on his face all the while.
“You simply can’t buy that level of loyalty and caring. He’s a perfect example of the type of fabric needed to build a strong institution.”
Peter received a BS in Engineering from Lafayette University and an MBA from Lehigh University. He worked at Bethlehem Steel for over 20 years. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of Golden Key International Honor Society from 2006-2015, and was a consultant to many companies in the field of Recruitment and Management Development, as well as authoring several books in this field. Peter helped countless graduate students crystallize and attain their career goals, and cherished his role as a life-long coach and mentor.
Peter was an avid tennis and squash player and coach, loved skiing, and enjoyed fine dining and wine. He was a member of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston, TX and volunteered with Assistance League Houston. He was extremely proud of his Greek heritage.
Peter is survived by his spouse, Judy Lynn Spinella, of Houston, TX; his children, Margaret Veruki Hartveit (Espen) of Bergen, Norway, Lili Veruki, of Clinton, MA; and his step-children, Wylie Scott Slater (Karen) of Bryan, TX, and Jennifer Spinella Kochan (Donald) of Arlington, VA. He is preceded in death by his oldest daughter, Jennifer Veruki. Grandchildren are Mattias Hartveit and Hanne Hartveit of Rochester, NY and his sister Andrea Veruki Stoney, of Carrboro, NC.
No services are planned at this time due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the “Peter Veruki Scholarship” through Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University.
