Scott O’Connell graduated from the Pennsylvania State University with a BS in Economics in 1979. He worked as a Research Economist for the United States Department of Commerce in the Bureau of Economic Analysis and for the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC. He worked for nineteen years in non-profit fundraising, specializing in direct response fundraising, major gift solicitation, and planned giving specializing in charitable trusts and other philanthropic giving vehicles. For the last seventeen years he has been a financial analyst with Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb, a money management firm in New York with $20 billion of assets under management.