Ralph F. DellaCamera, Jr.
BS ’75, Marketing

Managing Member & CIO
DellaCamera Capital Management, LLC

     Ralph DellaCamera, Jr., was always quick on his feet, a fireball of a football player who had big athletic hopes. He planned his future early on: attend Southern Connecticut State University for a degree in physical education. Then, at age 16, he detached his retina playing football, and his doctor told him if he ever were hit in the head again, he’d lose more than a retina. Ralph looked around for a ‘Plan B’ but, not at the top of his class at North Branford High School, he figured just about anything else seemed out of reach.

     He did know numbers, though, and was as quick to calculate equations in his head as he had been fast on his feet. A class in high school had introduced him to the stock market, and he embraced the gambling aspect of it. And he was a confident kid, social and competitive. But college? He waited, thinking he’d figure out what his life’s goal was after a few months working in the construction trades. Faced with a future of grinding-hard physical labor, he chose the stock market instead. He might have lacked studiousness, but he was ambitious and determined. “I wanted to make money,” he says.

     He began dropping by brokerage offices in New Haven, offering to work for free to learn the business. “You need a college degree,” the brokers told him. He met John Benevento, then the University of New Haven’s director of admissions, who blanched at DellaCamera’s grades but decided to help. Benevento sent DellaCamera to night school, where he worked feverishly to get into UNH. DellaCamera worked as a longshoreman to pay his tuition. He took summer classes and read the Wall Street Journal every day. “If I were going to get a job on Wall Street, I needed to prove to them that I was ambitious,” he says.

    He graduated in 1975 with a bachelor’s degree in marketing and, although he tripped over numerous obstacles on his way to becoming a success on Wall Street, he pulled himself back up each time. He lost his clients’ money; he lost his own; he made it back. He read book after book on warrant hedging, convertible bonds and the stock market. He worked for Advest, Paine Webber, Bache, the Guggenheim family and more. He married his wife Frances and had two children, Christina, now 26, and Nicolas, now 23. Finally, he began working at Elliott Associates as a senior convertible arbitrage trader for Paul Singer, a man rumored to be tough. But it was just another challenge, and it didn’t faze DellaCamera. He did so well that he was able to start his own firm, DellaCamera Capital Management, in 2006.

   His story is one of frequent failure and enduring success. He’s older now, and wiser, and happy to give credit where it’s due. 

    “There are two people in my life who had the biggest impact on me,” DellaCamera says. “One is my father. The guy is just tremendous. He set a very strong example from a work-ethic standpoint. He never made any money, had a heart of gold, took care of many people and got burned in the process. And the other is Paul Singer. He took a kid from the street who knew nothing and he molded me. I caught two breaks in life: my dad and Paul.”

      If that’s not an American story, what is? 

    “I think people at UNH are still scratching their heads and saying, ‘Ralph made money?’” he laughs.