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Tom Catani

Tom Catani

VP, sales | U.S. Cellular | Class of 1982

The second place Tom Catani called home at the UI — floor 2 at Weston Hall — was, to put it kindly, “a bit less than luxurious.”

“Nothing like the dormitories of today. We called it Tai M’hall” (not to be confused with Taj Mahal), says U.S. Cellular’s Knoxville, Tenn.-based vice president of sales (BS ’82, business administration/marketing).

“One side was women and the other men, with some kind of ineffective locking system in between. Lived upstairs, worked downstairs in the cafe, had a health club across the street — IMPE — and my own mailbox nearby in a place with coffee where we would late night study.

“It was like a coffeehouse-Starbucks before they were imagined. And, more socializing, less studying usually happened.”