Brian M. Travers
Firm: Travers & Associates
City: Hauppauge, N.Y.
Age: 41
Brian M. Travers’ wife, Michelle, a first grade teacher at a school with an economically diverse population, would often come home with stories about her students who couldn’t afford school supplies. Not ones to let that pass, Brian and Michelle would go to their local Target and Wal-Mart to personally buy supplies to level the playing field for those students. In 2010, Brian established the Day One Foundation, a nonprofit whose objectives included raising money for economically challenged students and school districts. The Day One Foundation’s primary goal is to assist families and children with better opportunities and health care, “to give our youth the greatest chance of success in life.”
When Brian, the founding partner and managing principal of Travers & Associates, as well as a member of Stony Brook University Children’s Hospital’s Task Force in Stony Brook, N.Y., learned that the hospital was planning to expand, he set into motion the First Annual Day One Foundation Golf Classic. The event, held on Oct. 1, 2012 at Woodside Acres Country Club in Muttontown, N.Y., raised $35,000, which was matched by an anonymous donor, for a total contribution to the hospital of $70,000. Brian hopes that this year’s golf classic, planned for Sept. 30 at the same location as last year, will raise $100,000—and, with a match again from the same anonymous donor, that means that $200,000 will potentially go to the hospital. Because of gifts like those Day One provides, Stony Brook Children’s Hospital, established in 2010 and the only children’s facility of its kind in Suffolk County, N.Y., can continue to offer a wide range of medical services for infants, children and teens.
In 2009, in addition to starting an estate-planning practice that emphasizes strong, educational relationships with clients, Brian instituted a philanthropic component that’s become part and parcel of how he runs his firm. It’s mandatory for those who work with him to get involved in causes about which they feel passionate. “You must find things that are near and dear to you, as we have a tremendous opportunity to make a difference” is what he tells his associates. Clearly, Brian leads by example.
Photograph by: William Neumann
