Dan Chiariello C’86 cites professors who inspired him.
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December 2018 – At Drew University, incoming Sparta Township Councilman Dan Chiariello learned the importance of civic engagement.
“More broadly, I had a well-rounded liberal arts education that offered me the opportunity to use different parts of my brain,” said Chiariello C’86, a consultant who designs and documents IT solutions at SiriusXM Radio. “It helped me understand a problem from many angles to arrive at a good solution.”
Chiariello, who begins a four-year term in January, has deep roots in The Forest. He met his future wife there (Lisa Lemery C’86) and his son, Jared Chiariello, is a member of the Class of 2022. What’s more, his father, Pat, graduated in 1937 and his half-sister, Alice, in 1960. As he put it, “We’re a Drew family.”
An an undergraduate, Chiariello majored in mathematics and played intramural sports, including soccer and ultimate Frisbee. He also wrote for The Drew Acorn and DJ’d on WMNJ. It was inside the classroom, however, that he found his biggest mentors.
Math Professor Alan Candiotti taught him to love learning, simply by example. “He would open someone’s textbook, glance at the problem, turn to the board, pick up a piece of chalk and with it spray some mathematical wizardry onto the black surface,” Chiariello recalled. “It came so naturally. I was awestruck. I wanted to be that guy.”
Philosophy Professor Hans Morsink gave him an appreciation for the beauty of the discipline and a single class with Political Science Professor Julius Mastro “turned a world that was foreign to me into something that I could see myself part of.” Well, more than 30 years later, Chiariello is decidedly all in.
