Rider University hosted a building dedication ceremony yesterday to reveal a $5.5 million gift by former TE Connectivity CEO Thomas J. Lynch. No one was more surprised by the unveiling of the building’s name than his best friend and fellow Rider alumnus, Joseph Adler.
Held outside North Hall, the ceremony announced Lynch’s $5.5 million gift, one of the largest individual gifts ever received in university history. As part of the multimillion-dollar pledge, North Hall was renamed Lynch Adler Hall. The renaming was a surprise not only for Lynch’s longtime friend, but for most of the university community.
“There are so many moments in my life that I attribute to Joe Adler,” Lynch said in a statement. “It seemed natural that if I was going to do something like this, he had to be a part of it. None of this would have happened without him.”
Lynch and Adler have been friends since their grade school days. When it came time to decide upon a college to attend, Lynch followed in his friend’s footsteps.
“Coming to Rider wasn’t a very strategic decision on my part,” Lynch said in a statement. “When my best friend, Joe Adler, decided to go to Rider, it sounded good to me so I decided to go to Rider.”
Lynch credits much of his success to his Rider education and his time as an undergraduate student.
“This potential that I had no idea that I had was discovered here and cultivated here,” he said. “I never would have predicted that 30 years later, I would be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. There’s no question about it. The deep education I got at Rider was integral to that.”
Lynch earned a bachelor of science in commerce with a major in accounting from Rider after only three years. He is currently serving his second term on Rider’s Board of Trustees. He is also currently the executive chairman of the Board of Directors of TE Connectivity, a world leader in connectivity and sensor solutions with 75,000 employees and $12 billion in sales. Lynch received Rider’s Sesquicentennial Medal of Excellence in 2015 and an Alumni Recognition Award from the College of Business Administration in 2003.
Adler also earned his degree, a bachelor of science in commerce with a major in accounting, in three years. He added a master of business administration from Rider in 1990. Adler worked for more than 30 years in the food industry. He recently retired from Pinnacle Foods, which manufactures and markets branded food products such as Birds Eye vegetables and Duncan Hines baking mixes, as a vice president and controller. For many years Adler taught as an adjunct professor in Rider’s College of Business Administration.
Thomas J. Lynch and Joseph Adler outside the newly named Lynch Adler Hall.,
