Wall Street

Former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain Just Got A Forest Named After Him

Many wealthy executives have their names memorialized on concert halls or hospital wings or university libraries. John Thain, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch, has his name on a whole forest. A forest in New York City.

Thain, who since stepping down as Merrill’s CEO in 2009, now runs CIT Group, another financial services firm. And he also just endowed a forest. Or underwritten its restoration, rather. “The Thain Family” now its name plastered all over the 50-acre forest owned by the Bronx Botanical Gardens, just north of Manhattan.

Thain apparently didn’t ask for the forest to be named the Thain Family Forest — the Gardens decided to do it as a thank you, so they say. Either way, Thain’s getting tons of credit.

As City Room notes, the forest is covered with dozens of signs proclaiming that the forest’s new name.

Are there other Thain locales you should know about? Indeed — The Thain Family Cafe is a dining hall at Yale. (Thain went to MIT and Harvard, but his daughter’s a Yale grad). According to The Yale Daily News, students even protested that the dining hall be renamed after the bailout scandal in 2008.

So this time, Thain decided to support a place inhabited by trees, squirrels and the rare wanderer. They’re less likely to complain.

TAGS: bronx botanical gardens | john thain | thain family forest

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