Alfred Berkeley ’62

Alfred Berkeley is one of the longest standing legacies in Episcopal history. In fact, four Berkeley brothers were members of Episcopal’s first class in 1839. 123 years later, Berkeley continued the storied tradition set by his grandfathers, father, brother, uncle, and cousins that came before him, graduating in the Class of 1962.

While attending EHS, Berkeley became infatuated with community service. “I think that was a big part of the whole ethic of Episcopal,” Berkeley said. “The idea was we were privileged people and should view
ourselves as owing society a lot.”

A financial analyst by background, Berkeley served as the President of NASDAQ, and was part of the team taking companies like Oracle, Microsoft, and over 100 others public in his 40 years in the financial industry. Comparing the world of finance to a “chess game,” he served on both President Bush’s and President Obama’s advisory councils centered around cybersecurity. Berkeley feels incredibly fortunate for the opportunities he has had to influence national policy.

“I was lucky enough to be involved in taking some of the companies everyone knows public,” he said.

While finance was a colossal portion of Berkeley’s life, so was community service. His newest investment, Triaj is a handheld, mobile, diagnosis-specific, cloud-based application to guide “just-in-time” medical care of an injured child. It provides a seven-day hospital treatment guideline from resuscitation through discharge, for health-care providers — surgeons, physicians, nurses, and corpsmen.

Created in 2011, to treat children in Afghanistan who had stepped on landmines, so-called “blast injuries,” Triaj now is utilized around the world. The app addresses three major health care challenges to eradicate medical error, expand evidence-based best practices to improve patient care quality, and to eliminate the prohibitive cost of care. The project walks doctors through 30 different diagnoses ranging from concussions to injuries from landmines.

“My friend Dr. Martin Eichelberger founded the app, and I’ve been helping him get the word out,” Berkeley said. “I’m hoping to get to the medical community who are affected by the Ukraine situation, so I’ve reached out to my contacts at the United Nations. We have a great sense of urgency because the solution to the injured children problem exists.”

Fueled by the words of former EHS faculty member, Jim Seidule to “persist,” Berkeley aims to inform as many countries of Triaj as possible because “it will save some lives.”

Even as a retired investment banker, Vietnam war veteran and current philanthropist, Berkeley considers his proudest accomplishment his wife, three daughters, and four grandchildren. “Family is everything to me,” he said. He is presently assisting several small businesses with advice surrounding their brand and finances. “I hope I die with my boots still on,” Berkeley said. “I have no intention of hanging them up, I want to keep doing what I’m doing.”

He hopes current EHS students will always keep the honor code first, “Episcopal values are where you start. Be honest with people, be open, forthright, transparent, caring, and loving,” Berkeley said. “Then you want to work hard because there’s so many opportunities in the world.”