The day after Gerald Quinn (‘87) graduated from high school in 1983, he was on his way to boot camp for the Coast Guard Reserves in Cape May, New Jersey. He still had not decided which university he would attend for the next four years.
Quinn is a former Villanova swimmer and graduate of the Villanova School of Business with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in finance and a minor in accounting. He currently is a team lead of a group that works for Customs and Border Protection.
Before Quinn departed for boot camp, he sent in a couple of applications for colleges. His mother wanted him to apply to a Catholic university, and Villanova checked that box.
Despite applying to Villanova, Quinn had plans set to attend the University of South Florida in Tampa, FL upon his return from his stint at boot camp. However, Quinn was going to end up somewhere else.
“When I got home [from boot camp] on July 15 of that summer in 1983, my waitlist [for Villanova] was turned into an acceptance,” Quinn said. “I made a decision [to go] and my mom, I think she was just overjoyed that I would be going to a Catholic university.”
Quinn was a captain of the Villanova men’s swim team in the 1986-87 season and was a Big East finalist in all four years.
Unlike most student-athletes, Quinn’s path to swimming was not through recruitment. Throughout his childhood, Quinn swam on a club team in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and had a few teammates go on to swim at Villanova.
“I walked on the [swim] team,” Quinn said. “I spoke to the coach Ed Geisz. I talked to Ed once in high school and never thought that we’d be running into each other down the road.”
Quinn took up his first job at 20th and Chestnut in the Center City of Philadelphia working for a small market maker of bank stocks.
His career path quickly shifted and bounced around to different parts of the business world.
“I thought I was going to have something to do in the financial industry,” Quinn said. “And then I focused more on wherever my path took me and I eventually landed at a chemical company that was right there at 20th and Market [in Philadelphia] called Elf Atochem. I got to experience several different systems implementations and learned the software SAP.”
Eventually, Quinn was named the company’s Chief Compliance Officer.
“It just was like a springboard to the next thing,” Quinn said. “That was working at one of the professional service firms at the time as Coopers & Lybrand doing SAP implementations for all these different companies and learning how to implement the software for what their specific problem was.”
With decades of experience learning how to implement different systems to help businesses manage their operations, finances, and customer relationships, he now is working in the cargo industry.
“Now I’m the agile team lead for one of the teams at Customs and Border Protection on the cargo side to implement and maintain all the systems for how cargo comes in and out of the country,” Quinn said.
When companies need to move things in and out of the borders of the United States, it all needs to be tracked. That is where Quinn’s specialization in systems comes in. When companies move products, sometimes they are faced with duties which are a form of taxes on imports.
“We help to facilitate that and collect $72 billion worth of duty on an annual basis that supports the revenue of the United States,” Quinn said.
Quinn’s field of work has made recent news due to the new executive orders from President Donald Trump. His orders have included tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, which have since been delayed. Every new order on imports and exports, people like Quinn have to adapt to.
“Every weekend since the inauguration, our team has worked,” Quinn said. “So, we’ve had to do some kind of change in the system or redesign how a calculation is done or implement new tariff rates based on the recent executive orders. It impacts our team because we’re the ones that are helping support how duties, taxes and fees are calculated.”
On top of his job, Quinn still is an actively involved alumni who is always helping current Wildcats. In 2024, he had calls with 51 students who all in some way benefited from his time with them.
In the District of Columbia near where he currently resides, he is a mentor for the Villanova Club of Greater Washington. He was formerly the president for more than 10 years. The club’s goal is to help current students connect with alumni to help further their future careers.
“It just makes me so happy when you see somebody else successful [that you’ve helped],” Quinn said. “I think when you see somebody else succeed, it’s irreplaceable.”
