Richard Greco Jr. was Undersecretary to the American
Navy from 2004 to 2006.
In this role he was also Chief Financial Officer of the Department of the Navy.
Before being confirmed by the Senate, Undersecretary Greco was Director
of the Sector for Private Development in charge of attracting foreign investments to Iraq.
From 1997 to 2002 he was Director General of Stern, Stewart & Co, for which he
initiated Italian operations by developing contracts with companies such as Fiat,
Pirelli, Unes Supermarkets, Nusa Investments Bank and Credito Emiliano.
He was a member of the Executive Committee of the Italian language version
of the periodical "Journal of Financial Analysis".
He has taught at the Bocconi University and has been a member of the Italian
Association of Financial Analysts. He is the founder and President Emeritus
of the Montfort Academy, the Advanced Business School of Katonah (NY) whose
teaching philosophy is based on the connection between the roots of Italian
culture and those of the American economy. With an MBA from the Business School of Chicago,
Richard Greco has also studied international relations at the John Hopkins University and in Italy.
As a member of the White House team and a special assistant to the
defence secretary, as well as a member of the team for reconstruction
based at Baghdad and the undersecretary of the navy, I have had the incomparable
privilege of being able to work among the bravest men and the women that my country has ever had.
Two years ago, we commemorated the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Italy.
We honoured the 19,459 Americans, many of whom were of Italian origin, whose sacrifice
was the greatest act of charity and love that a human being can make: that of
giving up his own life for his friends.
The great English writer G. K. Chesterton once said,
"the true soldier fights not because who hates those he has in front of him,
but because he loves what he has behind him." The kindness, the truth, and the
good that are behind our soldiers today are the same values that many Italian
emigrants over the centuries found in front of them when they crossed the oceans searching for a better life.
They arrived in a land where the realization of a dream does not depend
on one's name or the wealth that a man brings with himself,
but rather on the talents that God has given to him. And it is thanks to
education that a person can advance, grow, and improve oneself. It is education
that guides us towards the discovery of our interests and our talents.
It is thanks to education that we can realize our dreams and see the fruits
of the immense sacrifices made by our parents and the people of previous generations.
It is through education that we receive from the world and we can give something back to the world.
500 years ago, in the Italy of the Renaissance, an educator named
Vittorino da Feltre said "we give the name of liberal to those studies that are
worthy of free men; those studies whose objective is the attainment and
the exercise of virtue and wisdom. Those studies that stimulate, develop and
refine the highest intellectual and physical qualities that ennoble man and
that are second in dignity only to virtue.
The man who is poor in spirit is motivated by profit and pleasure.
The noble mind pursues virtue and morals; principles that must be nourished
from infancy and be fed constantly over time.
I assert with absolute conviction that that we will never attain wisdom
if we have not set out on the pathway towards it the first years of life and continued on it ever since".
This is the source of inspiration of the Montfort Academy.
The Montfort Academy proposes to teach the best that has ever been said
or thought by mankind throughout history, by supplying the foundations
of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, as well as by teaching Latin, Greek,
astronomy, mathematics, the sciences, history, philosophy and literature.
It is a place of learning that encourages the Socratic dialogue and the
contemplation of the night sky. It is a laboratory where physical exercise
is also the exercise of the mind and the spirit. It is a school where
the lecturers are the giants of finance and the heads of government.
The Italian language is at the foundation of our teaching and the Montfort Academy
insists on four-years of study of Italian language and culture by every student,
no matter what their nationality or specific interests may be.
The courses provided by our school involve a total immersion in Italian culture,
including archaeology, architecture, Etruscan history, iconography, Boccaccio and Manzoni.
To sum up: the infinite and incomparable Italian passion for life.
Our school also arranges for students to spend a summer
month of vacation-study in Calabria and Sicily, the ancient land of
Magna Graecia,
in order to discover through archaeology the roots of western civilisation and the great
story of human success and failure over the centuries.
At this point two questions arise spontaneously:
Why should an American high school student have such a great passion for Italy?
What does Italy possess that should make it the only point of
reference for a complete course of classical studies?
The answer is very simple and at the same time profound.
UNESCO, the educational, scientific, and cultural organization of the United Nations,
established a long time ago that 62 per cent, more than half,
of the world-wide cultural heritage and patrimony comes from a country that
today represents less than 1 per cent of the world population: Italy.
Since it wishes to train the cultured citizens and men of the
world the Montfort Academy, as an educational organization, cannot
do otherwise than include the study of Italy in its syllabus.
How can we fail to remember the great discoveries made by great Italians
who modified the course of history? It is Italy that taught the world to see.
Cristoforo Colombo saw beyond the physical horizons of the world,
leading the way to exploration and globalization. Galileo Galilei saw beyond the senses,
inaugurating modern science. Guglielmo Marconi saw beyond the limitations of the electrical wire,
making it possible to invent radio, television, and all the wireless communications
that we use today. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Clare and the saintly friar
Padre Pio saw beyond the temptations of this world to help us to see through to the afterlife.
We are the heirs of a culture that invented accounting,
banking, the pianoforte and the opera. Our ancestors include giants such as Pythagoras,
Leonardo da Vinci, Enrico Fermi, Maria Montessori, Gaetano Filangieri and Filippo Mazzei,
who inspired Thomas Jefferson to draw up the American Declaration of Independence.
We are the heirs of many anonymous artists, shoemakers and bakers,
whose conceptual and material inventions, in art and the sciences have
entered the churches and public squares of cities, as well as shops and bookcases all over the world.
We are the heirs of that creative genius that is perpetuated throughout
the world wherever there are Italians and that draws its inspiration from the
sweat and tears of our fathers and mothers, our grandfathers and grandmothers,
whose lives were acts of extreme courage, wisdom and humility; acts of
virtue that have passed on to us an inheritance full of joy.
We must be proud of this. We must make our ancestors proud of having
handed down the legacy the left us with honour and honesty during our lives,
so that we can repay their sacrifices. Only in this way will we be able
to influence humanity positively and make a contribution towards the future of our civilization.
