Terrier Volume 76, Number 1 - Spring 2012 | Page 14

Insuring a Brighter Future at St. Francis

I n s u r i n g a B r i g h t e r F u t u r e at S t. F r a n ci s
Contin u ed from pre vious pag e

Standing on stage at the NY Marriott Marquis April 25 as the honoree for the 51st Annual Charter Award Dinner was a
humbling experience for Barbara G. Koster ’76.

M

“

y view of what St. Francis gave
to me — there’s no way I could
ever give back,” said Koster, a
Senior Vice President and Chief Information
Officer of Prudential Financial, Inc.
“St. Francis taught me so much about being
a good person. It’s as much about the caring
and the support as a way to be a leader.
Using those skills in my leadership role has,
I think, made the difference for me and clearly
allowed me to have an impact that other
people don’t understand because they don’t
take the extra few minutes to really understand what’s going on in the background.”
That caring philosophy started with
Koster’s very first interaction with the late
Brother George Larkin, O.S.F. ’60. Having
won a science fair at Bishop Kearney High

The Charter Award Dinner
raised more than half a million
dollars for the College and
funded the new Barbara G.
Koster ’76 Scholarship.
School, Koster then entered a regional fair
at St. John’s in Queens. She had built a bulky
analog computer with wood, nails and an
ohm meter and had to carry it by herself on
four trains just to get to the fair.
“I remember sitting in the audience alone,
listening to the awards and thinking, ‘Oh
well, I didn’t even get an honorable mention.’
Then they announced third place, second
place and finally first place which included a
50 percent scholarship to St. Francis College,
and that’s what I won.”

Barbara G. Koster ’76 with Joan
Hernandez (Skowronkski) ’76.
Mary Macchiarola and Chancellor
Frank J. Macchiarola ’62 with
CNN Correspondent Mary Snow
who years ago baby-sat for the
Macchiarola children.

(Skowronkski) ’76, whom Mrs. Koster says

is her life-long best friend.
“We came from similar backgrounds,
but went down different career paths,” said
Hernandez who went into education, teaching
autistic children in New Jersey. “We were in
each other’s wedding, our husbands and
now kids are all friends. My children call her
Aunt Barbara.”
While Koster maintained her relationship
with fellow graduates, it wasn’t until about
eight years ago that she reaffirmed her
relationship with the College. “While you’re
raising your family, you’re so intent on work
and the family but then once the girls hit

the college level you find yourself with time.
I got invited to a discussion about women in
business and that’s how it all started.”
Koster was one of the founders and
principal funders of the Academic
Scholarship for Women. “It’s for a deserving
young lady who can’t afford the tuition.
This is a way for them to be able to get an
excellent education and an excellent opportunity. Very much the same as I did.”
In addition, Koster joined the St. Francis
Board of Trustees where she brings her
combination of accounting and technology
experience to finance, strategic planning and
facility committees, among other duties,
saying it’s a pleasure and honor to serve.

“We are lucky to have Barbara as one of our
alumni. She’s a model for every one of us,”
said Executive Vice-President McGrisken.
“She has worked hard every step of the way,
and earned every level of her success. At the
same time, she is always there to help out, and
not just on the big projects. She deserves this
Charter Award Honor and so much more.”
Koster says that in her wildest imagination,
she never imagined the level of success she
would achieve.
“I grew up in a four-room railroad
apartment in Brooklyn, six of us with one
bathroom and a schedule on the door. Never
in a million years could I have possibly
dreamed this dream.”

Engaging Alumni
Diana Koster, Kathryn (Koster) Howard, Bob Koster, Barbara G. Koster ’76, President Brendan J. Dugan ’68, and
Chairman Board of Trustees John F. Tully ’67.

Koster, the oldest of four children, says
that even with the scholarship, her parents
still could not afford the tuition and she was
probably heading to Brooklyn College.
“I went and I met with Brother George,
and Brother George made it all happen.
He set me up with work study at the accounting firm Baglivi and Cook. I worked about
30 hours a week and went to school. Brother
George is the one person that was always
there for me.”
When it came time to graduate, the
career center and the late Brother John
Hoffschmidt, O.S.F. sent Mrs. Koster, who
holds a B.S. in Business Administration
and an A.S. degree in Computer Technology,
to a trio of accounting firms that had
technology programs as well.
“Back then, you learned things in school,
but then you had to go through the specific
program that each company had, to learn
their way of doing things. The offer that came
back first was from Chase. I was going to
go in as an accountant to learn the accounting
functions and then go into the technology
program to learn how to program for the
accounting function.”
Koster moved up
the ranks at Chase,
rising to President
of Chase Access
Services before
moving to Prudential.
Now in addition to
her Senior Vice

1 2  |  S t. F r a n c i s C o l l eg e T e r r i e r | S p r i n g 2 0 1 2

President and CIO positions, she is also
the head of Global Business and Technology
Solutions and a member of Prudential’s
Senior Management Committee.
That puts her on the road, or more
accurately, in the air to oversee numerous
international projects.
“We’re growing globally. We just doubled
our size in Japan. We’re growing in Korea
and Taiwan. I was just in Brazil,” said Koster,
who points to volatility with some of the
newer and smaller insurance companies as an
opening for Prudential. “The marketplace is
offering up lots of opportunities to look at
with all the consolidations that are going on.”
Koster, a member of one of the College’s
first graduating classes to include lay women
in 1976, credits the scarcity of other young
women at St. Francis with preparing her for
the business world.
“There weren’t a lot of women going into
the business functions either. You were