ALUMNI “WALL OF HONOR” The West Liberty University Alumni Board of Directors instituted a project in 1990 to demonstrate to current students, visitors, and friends that the college has some very successful graduates. This project, known as the “Alumni Wall of Honor,” is a dramatic way to honor some of the college’s most distinguished alumni and display pride in the accomplishments of its graduates. The concept was suggested by then Associate Professor of Physics Robert W. Schramm, who is a 1958 graduate of the college and a 2002 Alumni Wall of Honor inductee. The Alumni Wall of Honor is housed in the south end of the Union known as the Alumni Lounge.
John Dolan
John Dolan is a 1978 graduate of West Liberty with a BS in Business Administration and a specialization in accounting. John grew up on Wheeling Island, the fifth oldest in a family of 12 children. While at WLU he was a member of the Delta Chi fraternity.
John met his wife Kimberly at WLU and they will be married for 45 years in September of this year. They reside in Indiana, PA and have 3 children and 6 grandchildren. His career started while attending WLU when he worked as a night auditor at Oglebay Park to help pay for his education, but that stopped his wrestling career. He entered the public accounting profession
after graduation at Barnes Saly & Company, in Johnstown, PA and then found his way to a small bank with big aspirations in Indiana, PA. National Bank of the Commonwealth had $215 million in assets when he started as a staff accountant. He eventually became the Company’s first CFO and helped the company rebrand itself as First Commonwealth Bank and grow to $6.5 billion in assets when he retired as the company’s CEO after weathering the Great Recession.
John helped the company to do a direct listing on NYSE 25 years before the textbooks knew what that was. As CEO he maintained a strong capital position and was one of the few banks that did not take government money during the financial crisis. Dolan also was board chair for a publicly traded bank in Jacksonville, FL that turned around from a “certain failure” to a successful exit saving the FDIC any losses and making shareholders more than 3X their investment. He is currently Audit Committee Chair for BM Technologies, a publicly traded financial technology company.
In addition to his interests helping West Liberty, Dolan enjoys magic and volunteers time to help
entrepreneurs, local economic development, Ancient Order of Hibernians, finance council for his local parish and the Catholic Diocese of Greensburg and has served on the PA State Board of Accountancy, local hospital board and Chamber of Commerce.