Here’s the story of how Mark Connolly ’79 became a state representative at the age of 21. His neighbor in his hometown of Bedford, New Hampshire ran for Congress in 1974, and Connolly worked as his driver for the campaign. His neighbor lost the primary, but he encouraged Connolly to run for the legislature. Unlike his neighbor, Connolly was elected when he ran his sophomore year at the College.
Since then, he has dabbled in jobs ranging from banker, businessman, deputy New Hampshire secretary of state to New Hampshire director of securities regulation. Last November, Connolly announced his candidacy for governor of New Hampshire.
During his time at the College, besides working as state representative, Connolly was part of the crew team, co-chair for the Big Brother/Big Sister program, a member of the now-derecognized Alpha Delta fraternity, and worked at WDCR, the College radio station. He still kept one foot in campus politics, participating in a disarmament conference and covering the presidential primary of 1976 for the radio.
Of the College’s alumni, 22 have been governors, 14 having governed New Hampshire. Government professor John Carey said that the College provides an ideal atmosphere to foster the interest of students who are passionate about electoral politics.
“Every student who spends four years here is going to get one [presidential] primary season and that really is different on this campus from most other campuses,” he said. “One, the New Hampshire primary is more important than most primaries, and two, this is a small state. If we were in New York or Texas or California, a college this size wouldn’t get as much traffic. But we’re New Hampshire; every candidate wants to get a picture in front of Baker Library. Every candidate wants to have at least one public event, often many.”
Paul Wetmore ’79, Connolly’s friend at the College, remained in close contact with him following graduation. He said Connolly preferred to stay out of the spotlight during his years at Dartmouth — even the fact that he was a state representative remained unknown to most outside of his group of close friends.
“He wasn’t a celebrity or anything,” he said. “He wasn’t one of those big braggers around campus saying what he was doing.”
After his junior year, Connolly considered dropping out of the College due to a lack of funds to support his tuition. One of his fellow representatives, Elizabeth Crowley and her husband, helped secure a job for Connolly at an oil drill site in Alaska for the summer, allowing him to successfully finish his senior year.
“I remember a couple times we had to emergency land [in a helicopter] because of the weather change, or it would get so cold that I would have to wear a refrigerated suit,” he said. “If it wasn’t for that whole experience of being in the legislature and meeting Elizabeth and her husband, I wouldn’t have been able to do what I did.”
Following graduation, he worked as assistant secretary of state for four years, then he received an MBA from the Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
“I was a government major at Dartmouth, and that is where I put my stake in the ground,” he said. “However, in order to pursue an interest in public service, you needed to be rooted in business and understanding more broadly than just the area of government.”
Until the early 2000s, Connolly stayed in business, working for a New Hampshire-based insurance company and a Boston-based bank. From 2002 to 2009, Connolly worked as the deputy secretary of state and director of securities regulation. During that time of his life, he was involved in several major securities enforcement cases, including those against Tyco International and ING.
“I never measure my success with money, I measured it by my involvement in the greater community,” he said. “I’m proud of what I did in business and I look fondly in my representation in the state government, but that part of my life [as deputy secretary of state and director of securities regulation] was the most consequential in making who I am today.”
Connolly resigned in 2009 after speaking out about a mishandling of a Ponzi scheme, subsequently writing a book about it in 2011. In 2012, he started the New Castle Investment Advisors, a consulting firm based in New Castle, New Hampshire.
Connolly said that college students should consider making public service a part of their life at least at a point in their career.
“Both business and the public sector is only as strong as people’s willingness to be involved,” he said. “I would encourage people, especially freshmen at Dartmouth to think that, and understand that pursuing a professional career is important, but when we have such challenges before us like climate change, poverty, terrorism and a refugee crisis; you have an opportunity, and to me, an obligation, to be a part of that dialogue.”
