As coincidence would have it, both the ProJo's Charlie Bakst and Mary Ann Sorrentino, writing in the Phoenix, take a look today at the intersection between URI, basketball, and CVS CEO Tom Ryan.
Bakst first:
We are at the University of Rhode Island’s terrific $54-million Thomas M. Ryan Center and here is Thomas M. Ryan himself.
It’s halftime at Tuesday night’s URI-Providence College game. The five-year-old arena is packed, the Rams are leading, and Mr. CVS, who donated $2 million and whose company gave $3 million, tells me the place turned out exactly as he had hoped. “This is a perfect college basketball atmosphere,” the URI alum declares, accurately.
It wasn’t the best moment, but I felt I had to ask Ryan about corruption: Two former lawmakers have pleaded guilty to selling their office to CVS; two former company officials are under indictment. What does Ryan want you to know of CVS? “It’s an ongoing investigation and we’re cooperating and we think the justice system will work its way.”
The rest of Charlie's piece is devoted to the love that local pols, even those that didn't go to URI, hold for the school's basketball team.
Sorrentino, by contrast, writes about how Ryan, whose company has come under scrutiny in Operation Dollar Bill, the ongoing federal probe of State House influence-peddling, and US Attorney Robert Clark Corrente -- the guy directing the aforementioned action -- are considered "regular guys."
Asked if he ever worries that the university could be embarrassed if the CVS probe blows up, [URI President Robert] Carothers prefers not to speculate.
He confirms that Ryan and former State president William V. Irons still regularly attend URI basketball games, sitting in the same row opposite former governor Lincoln Almond, a one-time US attorney himself.
Carothers notes that Ryan deals daily with the major issues typical of a big national company. He stresses that Ryan travels widely and is not necessarily focused on “what is happening in Rhode Island.”
Regarding Ryan’s $2.5 million personal gift to URI — which was made public just hours after [Carlos] Ortiz and [Jack] Kramer were indicted — Carothers blames the university for the questionable timing, saying that Ryan made the gift long before the press release was issued.
Though he says he “thought about” the vacancy created by the stepping back of US District Court Judge Ernest Torres, Corrente is committed to doing as much as he can in his “time-limited” job — which, he notes, depends on the “political landscape.”
Corrente meets regularly with his staff and keeps his fingers on the pulse of the ongoing investigations.
Similarly, despite Ryan’s public silence, one can assume that a CEO who calls a manager about one store’s lighting probably doesn’t like being kept in the dark about more important matters.
Rhode Islanders, meanwhile, wait for the next installment in this drama starring two unlikely “regular guys.”