Name: Jack Santaniello
Leadership Charlotte Class: 30
Title/Company: Attorney / Partner with Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, LLP
Hometown: Charlotte (since high school a few decades ago)
Education: Graduate of Providence High School (first graduating class of school in 1990), BSBA in Business Administration, and J.D., both from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Current personal or leadership goals: To be the best dad and spouse I can be while helping others with their legal and personal issues (the good and the challenges); to help guide our younger professionals in my firm and hopefully inspire them to excel in their personal and professional endeavors.
If you could describe your Leadership Charlotte experience in three words or phrases what would they be?
1. Lifelong friends; 2. Life-learning and life-teaching experiences; 3. inspirational environment to get out of your own self-centered “life box”
What advice that you would you give to current Leadership Charlotte participants?
Fully engage in the process – some may have started this journey because they were “forced” to do so by their bosses or companies – you will find that after your time together, you will miss the monthly gatherings of your new friends.
What do you remember most vividly from your Leadership Charlotte experience and why?
Getting tazered at the CMPD Academy because no one else volunteered and I always wondered what it felt like. And I got to see the video footage afterward – didn’t know my face and body could contort like that.
What’s a lesson that you learned through LC that has stuck with you and why?
My professional training and experience causes me to see different viewpoints on any particular issue but from a focused business and legal lens only – there are many other types of lenses – more personal ones – out there for every situation which are a result of others’ backgrounds and experiences. My LC experience taught me how to better recognize and integrate more personal lenses into the mix of what I was hearing and seeing in my interactions with others.
Favorite nonprofit or community organization in Charlotte and why:
My church, Christ Lutheran. We are blessed with a great church family and a wonderful worship service week after week with a lot of talent – from our Pastors’ messages to the music – it is like going to a symphony concert every week – and the youth program is top of its class.
How has your life after Leadership Charlotte surprised you and why?
I don’t know if LC classes still do this, but we were required to write a letter to ourselves at the beginning of the class year. The letters were then sent to us by Elizabeth via regular mail several months after the class year has concluded. I keep that letter in my nightstand and pull it out often to remind me of the goals I set for myself way back then and to continue to strive for those which I have not yet reached. It also brings me back to that time and puts me in a frame of mind as to “what would they [my classmates] do” for anything that is weighing on me at that time.