Obituary of Michael P Ryan

Michael P. Ryan died on Sunday, July 7th 2013 after a difficult battle with lung cancer. He entered the welcoming embrace of the Lord peacefully, surrounded by his loving family. Michael was born in Abington, PA on August 25th 1954. He was the third of four children of Edward F. and Lois J. Ryan. As a result of his father’s travels, he lived throughout Pennsylvania as a child. He graduated from Conestoga High School in 1972, where he was the Conestoga Pioneer, a member of the men’s soccer team, and a Harvard Book Prize winner. He attended Williams College for his undergraduate studies, graduating in 1976 with a bachelor’s degree in religion and philosophy. After graduating from Williams College, Michael embarked upon a very successful 25-year career in finance. His first job out of college was with Bank of America. He left Bank of America for BNP Paribas where he worked in the fixed income group. He joined Merrill Lynch in 1983. At Merrill, Michael found his true professional calling and soon developed a strong affinity for the firm, its people, and its culture. He would end up spending the next 20 years of his career at Merrill Lynch. Michael’s first role with the Company was in the firm’s Institutional Marketing group; here he soon found success and, by the early 1990s, was put in charge of the group. Soon afterwards, Michael realized Merrill Lynch needed to change the way the equity underwriting business was done, and so Michael successfully helped lead the creation and structuring of Merrill Lynch’s Equity Capital Markets group. As a result of his insight and efforts, Michael was viewed as a key thought-leader within the firm. By the mid-90s, the Equity Capital Markets group that Michael helped create became one of the most important business lines for Merrill Lynch. As a result of the group’s success, Michael was asked to move to London in 1993 to run the firm’s International Equity Capital Markets group. Michael accepted the challenge, moved his family to London, and spent the next four years successfully building up Merrill Lynch’s international equities business. With his tireless travel, he built Merrill Lynch into a global industry leader, and he and his team would eventually go on to win International Equity House of the year in 1999. After finding success in Europe and Asia, Michael moved back to the United States as the Co-Head of Merrill Lynch’s Global Equity Capital Markets group until his retirement from Merrill Lynch in 2002. Near the time of Michael’s retirement from Merrill Lynch, he also successfully led the creation of a new business venture called i-Deal. With start-up funding from Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Thomson Financial and Microsoft, i-Deal soon became the premier provider of new issue software for the capital markets. Michael would go on to become the Chairman of the Board and was awarded a patent in 2010 by the United States Patent office as the inventor of the software created by i-Deal to manage the Initial Public Offering (IPO) process. In addition to his distinguished professional career, Michael was also actively involved in charitable work. He was an active contributor to numerous Catholic charities including Christ the King Church in New Vernon, NJ. He was also a regular contributor to Habitat for Humanity in Johns Island, SC, a member of the board of Trustees at the Delbarton School in Morristown, NJ, and a member of the men’s choir at Christ the King Church. He also really enjoyed working with other amazing charities such as Movember for which he grew a great ‘stache’ in support of the fight against testicular cancer. Most recently he became an enthusiastic contributor to and participant in the Pan-Mass Challenge, a 190-mile bike ride in support of cancer research for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. His fundraising for Dana Farber was critical to funding a new research program aimed at curing advanced and aggressive cancers. He also enjoyed donating his time and effort as an amateur sports photographer for his sons’ various sports teams, including Patrick’s Brown University Lacrosse team, Tim’s Williams College Swim team and Mike’s Williams College lacrosse team. He will be greatly missed by his wife and love of his life, Mary, and their children: Christopher, and his wife Ellen, of Boston, MA, Patrick, and his fiancée Ashley, of New York, NY, Timothy of Portland, ME and Michael (Jr.) of Boston, MA. He will also be missed by his siblings: Janet, Richard, and Ted Ryan and their families, Mary’s siblings and their families, and all of Michael’s dear friends including the Davis, Hehir, Benton, Cox and Veghte families as well as all of his good friends from Merrill Lynch, the Kiawah Classic, Chatham, NJ, London, England, and Basking Ridge, NJ. Visitation will be held at the Gallaway and Crane Funeral Home, 101 South Finley Ave, Basking Ridge, NJ on July 11th, 2013 from 5pm-8pm. Funeral Mass will be held at Christ the King in New Vernon, NJ at 11am on Friday, July 12th with the burial to follow at St. Vincent Martyr Cemetery in Madison, NJ. For more information, please call the funeral home at 908-766-0250. Lastly, Michael’s family requests that in lieu of flowers you please consider sending donations to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute to help advance their cancer research efforts. Michael received his treatment at Dana Farber and his doctor was Dr. Michael Rabin. For those interested, checks can be made out to: Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology Dr. Michael Rabin’s Research Dana-Farber Cancer Institute 450 Brookline Avenue, DA 1234 Boston, MA 02215