John V. Pascale

The City College of New York was a great school. The atmosphere was nice. It was very convenient and very comforting to go there. I had some great professors in the Department of Chemistry. I took a course in chemical engineering, which exposed me to polymer chemistry. At that time, CCNY had companies come and interview people for jobs. That's how I got a job at Allied Chemical in Morristown, New Jersey. It was really good that the school did that. I was also a member of the American Chemical Society, and there were 60 chemists when I graduated. I was surprised to see that no other college in the United States graduated with more than ten chemists, so CCNY was way ahead of all the other schools in chemistry. I had a great career. I worked at Allied Chemical for seven years, and then I got into the flavor and fragrance business. I worked there in research and development for seven years. I then got a job at a small company called Alpine Aromatics, where I worked for 18 years. I became a perfumer. From there I had my own company with a few other people for ten years. I still work as a perfumer and I've been doing perfumery for 50 years. During that time, I became the president of the American Society of Perfumers, and I did a lot of work in the society. CCNY means everything to me because it gave me the opportunity to get a degree in chemistry, and I was always interested in chemistry. Without CCNY, I don't know what my life would have been like. It was an excellent experience, and we need more schooling like that for the younger people today.