FGCU Honors grad proves the power of saying yes to opportunity
- Nina Barbero
- Alumni
- Contributors: James Greco, Photo
6 – minute read
When Sam Palmisano first arrived at Florida Gulf Coast University, he brought with him more than just his clothes and books. As the first person in his family to go to college and the youngest of four siblings, he also carried a pressure to succeed.
“My parents worked hard their entire lives to create the opportunity for me to attend college,” Palmisano said. “You feel like there’s a little weight on your shoulders when you’re the first one, but my family’s been nothing but supportive.”
The Davie, Florida, native vowed to take advantage of every opportunity FGCU offered — and ended up with three degrees, a deep portfolio of campus involvement and a place in the 2019 Hall of Fame class.
Diving into campus engagement
Like many students, Palmisano was initially lured out of his residence hall into activities through incentives like pizza and T-shirts. In no time, he jumped headfirst into registered student organizations and other campus experiences.
“I found myself right off the bat going to things because they were free,” Palmisano said. “But right away, I could tell there were tons of opportunities available to me if I pursued them.”
So he got involved in the Honors College. He wrote and edited opinion pieces for Eagle News. He served as a mentor in Multicultural & Leadership Development programs — now, The Leadership Experience. Eventually, he joined Student Government and became a resident assistant. The list goes on.
He credits that wide-ranging involvement with introducing him to people who are still his best friends. He met one of his closest buddies during a relay run that was part of an Honors College course called Trails for Tails.
“We spent our spring break running from West Palm Beach to Key West to fundraise for the Ocean Conservancy. One of the guys that I met and ended up living with from that class — I was just his best man a couple months ago at his wedding,” Palmisano said. “I made lifelong friendships from being involved and from finding people who were passionate about the same things that I was. FGCU was really not just giving me a degree, but giving me a life to accompany that degree.”
Growing personally and professionally
Beyond cultivating peer connections, Palmisano said leadership and service activities helped him better understand himself and what he wanted to do after graduation. Last spring, he spoke before the FGCU Board of Trustees about how his FGCU experiences shaped the person he’s become.
“I realized I really liked working with people, and that was kind of what helped me plan my path forward,” he said.
A program called Leadershape encouraged him to imagine writing a newspaper looking back at his life and to think through the accomplishments he would want to read about. That was one of the moments that prodded him to realize he wanted to help businesses have a positive impact on the environment, Palmisano said. In addition to his 2019 bachelor’s degree in economics and 2020 MBA, he earned a 2022 master’s in environmental studies.
“Businesses, right or wrong, are going to dictate a lot of what happens in our society,” he said. “So how do we get our businesses on board with making the right decisions and looking out for our people and our planet?”
Now working as a team lead in the Revenue Management Department at Hertz in Estero and living in Tampa, Palmisano is proud of how he can tap into his varied academic background and leadership experiences in his profession. And, as an adjunct faculty member in economics, he’s in a position to influence the next generation of Eagles to embrace the wide spectrum of learning and engagement available to FGCU.
“It’s been an awesome experience going from student to faculty. I’m recently enough out of college to still understand how the students feel,” he said.
Bridging the student-teacher gap
Palmisano’s history at FGCU helps him relate to students in a way that many new professors can understand, according to Christopher Westley, dean of Lutgert College of Business.
“You kind of have your foot in both worlds — you’re not too far off from the students,” Westley said. “You still learn things the same way they do, you’ve seen the same movies and you’d recognize the same examples.”
Westley believes there’s value, too, in students seeing how successful Palmisano has become after so recently being in their shoes.
“I like getting him in front of our students to show them what they can become,” Westley said, “and that there’s always hope that if you work hard, you will be in a better place in the future, which is what college should always bring.”
Alongside his work at Hertz and FGCU, Palmisano is also pursuing his next degree: a Ph.D. in economics from the University of South Florida, which would allow him to become a full-time professor one day. This time, he’s not the only person in his family going to college.
His niece, Idalia Palmisano, is now an Honors College senior at FGCU double-majoring in quantitative economics and analytics and informatics — and recently began working with him at Hertz.
“It’s really cool knowing that I was the first one, but I won’t be the last.”
