Then, as they prepared to collect their diplomas, their commencement speaker, Rob Hale, a billionaire philanthropist from Boston, returned to the dripping podium.
“My friends and I were looking at each other like, no way,” Ali McKelvey, one of the students, said.
“We were like, this has to be a joke.”It wasn’t.
Mr. Hale, the co-founder and chief executive of Granite Telecommunications, ranks as one of the country’s wealthiest people and most generous benefactors.
He and his wife, Karen, gave away $1 million every week in 2022, to both well-known and unheard-of causes.
Persons:
Rob Hale, “, ” Ali McKelvey, Hale, Karen
Organizations:
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Granite Telecommunications
Locations:
Boston