Over the school’s long history, Creighton Prep has formed countless prominent and successful businessmen. One example of these successful businessmen is Patrick Duffy, Creighton Prep class of 1990 alumnus and president and managing partner of McCarthy Capital, a private-equity firm in Omaha.

“We invest money into private companies. Our investors, people that give us money, are large insurance companies, pension funds, and other institutions. They give us their money and trust us to go invest it wisely in private companies,” Duffy said. “We invest it in private companies and then we get involved with the private company, trying to help them grow their business at a faster rate. At some point usually five to ten years after we make the investment, we sell the private company usually to a larger company. It’s very interesting and very fun everyday,” Duffy said.

McCarthy Capital was started in 1986 and Duffy has been with the company since 2007. The goal of McCarthy Capital is quite simple as Duffy explains it.

“Our goal is to invest in private companies and help them grow their business,” Duffy said.

After graduating Creighton Prep in 1990, Duffy chose to pursue a career in finance.

“After Prep, I went to the University of Southern California where I played golf just for fun and studied for a degree in finance. After that I went to Creighton Law School and got a legal degree. Since then most of my career has been focused on finance, investments, mergers and applications,” Duffy said.

Duffy is grateful for the skills he learned at Prep that helps him with his current job.

“What I learned at Prep that still helps me today is teamwork, communication, written and verbal, serving others, and I found a lot of what I learned at Prep is more applicable to finance than other careers,” Duffy said.

Duffy enjoyed his time a Prep greatly and has many great memories from his time there.

“Obviously the friendships I formed with my buddies was great, we won state football all four years I was there, and Operation Others was a very big thing back then that we all went to and enjoyed,” Duffy said.

Duffy has had an enormous amount of success throughout his career and he has some advice for current Prep students.

“I would advise that they develop good study and work habits, that they learn how to develop good relationships, and they push themselves to continue to work and study harder,” Duffy said.