Lisa ’88 and Paul Emrick ’88 at first had not planned to attend West Chester, but their eventual decision to become Golden Rams set them on the path to a successful marriage and careers. The couple lives in the Allentown, PA, suburbs, where Paul is executive director of the Emrick Group for Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management and Lisa is a nurse for Penn State Health St. Joseph Urgent Care.

“I planned to go to a two-year nursing program,” Lisa explains. “But my father wanted me to go to college and get a fouryear nursing degree.” With his encouragement, she enrolled at West Chester. Paul started his college career at Penn State, but it wasn’t the right fit. After taking community college classes, he decided to study economics at West Chester.

Although the couple grew up in small towns just 25 miles apart – Lisa in Catasauqua, PA, and Paul in Bangor, PA – they first met at the University. They were married on August 27, 1988, just two months after their graduation. Paul had participated in Army ROTC and in November, the couple moved to Fort Sill, OK, where Paul began his tour of duty.

Paul later was stationed for three years in Schweinfurt, Germany. The couple lived in an apartment in the home of a German family and Lisa was the nurse on the small Army base. While there, they unexpectedly witnessed an historic event when the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989, reuniting then-Communist East Germany with West Germany. The event signaled the eventual dissolution of the former Soviet Union. “We were there during the whole unification of the country,” Paul says. “It was a pretty cool time in history to be in Germany.”

After his discharge, Paul began a financial planning career. He remembers being asked to list 100 people who could become clients. As a first-generation college student who grew up in a small town, he recalls, “I had exactly zero of these people.” Undaunted, he persevered, building a successful career that has included leadership positions as a managing partner at an investment consulting group and executive director at J.P. Morgan Private Bank before joining Morgan Stanley.

President Fiorentino had been a favorite professor of Paul's.

President Chris Fiorentino had been a favorite economics and finance professor when Paul was a student. The Emricks renewed their ties to West Chester when Fiorentino invited Paul to speak at a ROTC commissioning ceremony. The president asked him to serve on the board of trustees of the West Chester University Foundation – a position he held from 2017-2023. He had earlier served on the advisory board of the College of Business and Public Management.

The Emricks’ relationship with West Chester continues. They supported construction of the Business and Public Management Center and more recently pledged support for veterans programs. Although they note that none of their three children attended the University, West Chester is represented in their family by their son Nate’s girlfriend, Lauren Edelman ’21, who works for University Student Housing, LLC, a subsidiary of the WCU Foundation. “It’s another link for us back to the school,” they say.