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David Crean (Wilton, Conn.) earned academic credit while learning the basics of the New York Stock Exchange, interning on the floor of the Exchange with Weeden & Co., a Wall Street block trading firm with headquarters in Greenwich, Conn.
“I have been working on the floor of the stock exchange for four summers and four winters now, so my role has expanded every year I have worked there,” explains Crean, a government and law major and economics and business minor.
Over the January interim session, Crean assisted the head clerk with all transactions. “When an order came in from one of our customers, it was my job to relay it from the clerk to our broker so he could make the transaction,” he says. “I would then write a ticket up, stating how much the customer bought of a particular stock and the different prices. When the market closed, it was my job to recap all of the orders of stock and match them up with each one of the customers. If something was off, thousands of dollars could have been lost in the process.”
David Heiss, head block trader at Weeden & Co., supervised the internship. “Some day I would really like to work on a trading desk,” Crean says. “My mentor, David Heiss, has made it clear that I must understand how the business works down on the floor before I am able to give out orders on my own for customers.”
Crean found the internship to be a great learning experience. “My economics background at Lafayette has better prepared me for what to expect in the business world and there is nothing better than first-hand experience,” he notes.
A graduate of Wilton High School, Crean is captain of the men’s lacrosse team. Studying abroad in Sydney, Australia, in the fall of his junior year, he served as a First-Year Orientation leader during his sophomore and senior years. He works in the Kirby Fitness Center as a fitness assistant and has been a member of Lafayette Sports Council since his first year at Lafayette. He investigated the political theories of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau in an intensive independent research project during the fall semester.