Professor J.D. O'Connell is entrenched. His office is wall-to-wall with books and papers, leaving hardly enough floor space to walk to his desk. "I'm a squirrel," he explains. "I save everything."

A 1953 graduate of Holy Cross, O'Connell returned to the Hill as a professor in 1957. "I got a wonderful education here," he says, "and I'm happy to have been at the College all these years."

Four decades of teaching, advising, and serving on committees have made O'Connell something of an institution on campus, but you'd never know it to talk to the man. Inordinately humble, he'd prefer to talk about the legion of students he's guided into successful careers. It takes time to get him to speak about the "John D. O'Connell-Arthur Anderson Award," given annually to the highest ranking junior accounting major. And you'll have to go to his colleagues to learn that upon taking the 1954 CPA exam, O'Connell received the gold medal - the award given to the recipient of the highest score in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Of the 12,000 who took the exam nationally that year, O'Connell placed eighth.

O'Connell's former students are quick to lavish praise on the man. "J.D. was my mentor," says Stanley Kulas '74. "He's very dedicated and very intelligent. I admire him a great deal. He taught accounting and moral fortitude, which was not necessarily a strong point in business schools."

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