From the May 2010 issue of Our Moment, the UConn Foundation's e-newsletter.
UConn connections run deep in the Hughes family, something that has carried through to their growing family business and now in their philanthropic support for the University.
The family owns and operates TopCoder, a Glastonbury-based firm run by President/Chief Operating Officer Rob Hughes ’92, along with his brother Jack, chairman. Their brother Greg ’88 and sister Laurie Paternoster ’82 are also heavily involved in this company along with much support from another sister, Mary Abel. Rob met his wife Barbara ’93 while at UConn.
“My family has worked together in business since before I graduated,” Rob Hughes says. “I’ve always had a very positive feeling toward the University and what it gave me to be able to succeed in business. It seems like UConn has been part of me long before I attended it myself. I would often go up to campus and visit my sister in the Jungle and my brother in McMahon when they were there.”
Throughout their individual careers, the family’s connections to the University have been evident.
“In our last company, we probably had hired two dozen UConn alumni with information technology or computer science degrees,” Hughes says. “Even today, TopCoder’s chief technology officer is a UConn alum, as is our head of operations and key sales staff.”
He sees a public university playing key roles in creating a state environment where businesses can thrive.
“I think first and foremost, the role of a university like UConn is to develop the talent pool for the whole state. In businesses like ours, if you can hire locally from a top university, and get a constant level of performance, that is priority number one,” he says. “That means a lot of things. It means that a business can trust that the school has high integrity, it is current with new technology and new approaches to science and engineering, and it has a relationship with industry to understand trends and new developments that are happening around the world. We live in a fast-paced era of innovation and change and everything that this provides, so it’s more important than ever that UConn be in the lead.”
Since Greg sustained a spinal cord injury in 1982, the entire Hughes family has been heavily involved in the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation and its predecessor. Their late father, Michael and their mother Helen have instilled in their children a sense of responsibility for this cause. This concern and passion carries over in their recent gift for UConn through the Hughes Family Fund, which supports programs in the School of Business focused on wounded veterans outreach and training like the new Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans (EBV).
“The EBV program is a great effort that the University is undertaking, helping wounded warriors integrate with their community and grow their own businesses. I had learned of the program at Syracuse University, and thought, ‘If this ever gets expanded to UConn, we should help.’ When the School of Business actually did become involved in EBV and reached out to us, it felt great to get back involved with the school. Since graduation, I had been so heads-down trying to grow our business that I hadn’t been able to be involved before. This is a great opportunity to do so.”
Having worked so hard at their own entrepreneurial success, Hughes hopes to see the family’s giving translates into similar growth for the vets going through EBV.
“I think that if we can help grow this program through our giving, in five or ten years, we’re going to see that it will have provided some tangible signs of success for the vets. The University has a role in training them and helping them create businesses that last and thrive, and if we can see a modicum of success, that alone would mean an awful lot to us. We’re very proud to be a part of it.”
For more information about supporting the School of Business, please contact the UConn Foundation’s development department.
