The Circumstance of Opportunity

Following in his father’s footsteps, Peter Carnes ’57 walked his own path and created an award that endures at Hotchkiss.

Read the Spring 2025 Hotchkiss Magazine

By Eliott Grover

After his first year of college, Peter Carnes ’57 worked at a summer camp. At the start of the session, the director set the tone with a simple philosophy. “I want the counselors to have fun,” he said. “Because if the counselors have fun, the kids will have fun.”

To Carnes, that same spirit defines the Hotchkiss faculty. “They all value and attach a considerable degree of importance to the role they’re playing,” he says. “And I think most of them have fun doing it, which is even more important.”

Carnes’s path to Hotchkiss was forged by both circumstance and opportunity. Born in Englewood, NJ, shortly before the start of World War II, he grew up in a household shaped by frequent transitions. His father worked in manufacturing, and his mother was a homemaker. “My father had a bunch of jobs and then got involved in the war, so we really were slightly nomadic,” Carnes says.

After the war, the family settled in Connecticut, where Carnes started at Fairfield Country Day School. Midway through third grade, he was moved into the fourth-grade classroom. “I think that was the platform from which I eventually got into Hotchkiss,” he says. The adjustment meant learning alongside older, more mature students, an experience that would influence his academic journey.

When Carnes was in middle school, another job change took the family to Scranton, PA. He attended public school and found joy in playing baseball with other neighborhood kids. “It was kind of a typical sandlot team,” Carnes says. “That was a fun outlet for all of us boys.” After a year in Scranton, his father’s job moved the family back to Fairfield, where they planned for Carnes to remain in the public school system, at least through ninth grade. The idea was for him to then apply to prep schools, where, if accepted, he could repeat a year and rejoin peers his own age.

Four Years in Lakeville

“Prep school wasn’t a foreign idea for me at all,” Carnes says. “I knew my parents had enjoyed their prep school experiences tremendously.” His father, a member of the Hotchkiss Class of 1933, had excelled both academically and socially, forming lifelong friendships. Growing up, Carnes would flip through his father’s editions of The Mischianza, learning about the classmates and traditions that made his experience so impactful.

Despite that familiarity, Carnes approached his own transition to Hotchkiss with some natural nervousness. “It was a change,” he says. “I didn’t view it as a necessary change at the time. But in hindsight, that’s what it was. And a welcome one.” Fortunately, he wasn’t entirely alone. Several of his friends from Fairfield were also enrolling, and together they persuaded their parents to coordinate carpools for the school year.

Financial aid played a critical role in making Hotchkiss a reality for Carnes. “I’m not sure if I was aware that a scholarship was imperative for going, but I subsequently learned that it was,” he says. Over his four years, he was the recipient of several scholarships, including the Class of 1898 Scholarship, the Trustees Scholarship, and the Walter H. Buell Scholarship.

Though he adjusted quickly to boarding school life—thanks in part to his earlier experiences at sleepaway camp—Carnes still faced hurdles. Having skipped a grade, he was younger and less socially mature than most of his classmates. Repeating his prep year helped him find his footing. Academically, the workload was challenging, and no teacher was more demanding than Carle Parsons, the legendary prep English instructor who had also taught Carnes’s father.

“Of all the teachers I had, he probably had the greatest influence on me and my educational abilities in terms of learning how to write correctly and speak correctly,” Carnes says. Parsons had a rare gift for engaging students on an individual level, tailoring his approach to bring out their best work.

Years later, Carnes came to a realization about what made great teachers stand out. “Good teachers are two things,” he says. “They’re actors, and they’re coaches. They don’t have to have ‘Ph.D.’ after their name or things like that. To me, that was true of almost all the Hotchkiss faculty that I encountered. There were clearly some who were intellectually brilliant and imparted that wisdom in their own way. But the most effective ones were those who were really good coaches. A good coach will teach you discipline and fundamentals and how to remember them. And that was clearly what Parsons and a lot of other faculty accomplished.”

If Parsons was the consummate coach, then George Stone, Carnes’s math teacher and dormitory corridor master, was one of the School’s most dynamic performers. Famous for his classroom antics, Stone had a knack for keeping students engaged—sometimes with the help of a well-aimed flying eraser. Outside the classroom, Carnes and Stone shared a unique connection: Stone’s brother and Carnes’s father had been best friends at Yale. “He was friendly and showed an interest in me,” Carnes says. “It was an easy way to get to know your corridor master.”

After a quiet prep year, Carnes became more involved in campus life. Baseball remained his primary sport, but he also played soccer and took on leadership roles with The Record, The Mischianza, and the Student Council. When it came time to apply to college, he set his sights on Yale, where Hotchkiss had a strong pipeline thanks to family legacies and a record of accomplished graduates. Roughly 20 classmates joined Carnes in New Haven the next fall. “And that was not a high number for the time,” he says.

A Career at 30,000 Feet

At Yale, Carnes majored in business. Upon graduating, he spent six months in the Army as a reservist. He went on to Stanford Graduate School of Business before returning east and taking a job in the planning department of American Airlines, a small group dedicated to mapping the company’s future. Carnes thrived in the intellectually stimulating environment, staying for five years before yielding to the gravitational pull of Wall Street.

He joined Smith Barney as an airline security analyst, a natural extension of his experience in the industry. The work was engaging, but he soon realized something was missing. “After a couple of years, I discovered that when you’re a security analyst, you’re the third person in a two-party transaction,” he says. Seeking a more direct impact, he returned to American Airlines, where he quickly ascended the ranks. At just 32 years old, he became the company’s treasurer, a key leadership position that put him at the center of financial decision-making.

Despite his success, Carnes remained open to new challenges. After a series of leadership changes at American Airlines, he decided to give finance another shot—this time on his own terms. A brief stint at Chemical Bank (now J.P. Morgan) led him to a Boston-based startup pioneering the use of collateralized loan obligations, an innovative financial instrument at the time. “It was fun,” Carnes says. “We were doing something new and different. You had to be creative. You had to be responsive. It kept your juices moving.” That sense of energy and intellectual engagement had always been a driving force in his career. “I like to make a good buck,” he says, “but I’d rather keep my mind challenged.”

Supporting Dear Old Blue

When Carnes retired in the early 2000s, he found himself with more time to dedicate to Hotchkiss. Though he had always been an engaged alumnus—giving faithfully to The Hotchkiss Fund and helping establish the Class of 1957 Scholarship for his 50th reunion—his involvement deepened. His commitment did not go unnoticed. “In our class, he was often known as ‘Mr. Hotchkiss,’” says George Longstreth ’57, P’82,’85,’96, GP’22. “Other classes have had class agents and fundraisers by the dozens, but I’m guessing there are few as faithful to the ‘Dear Old Blue’ as Peter.”

Beyond his philanthropy, Carnes served the School for many years on the Board of Governors. He enjoyed assisting with admissions efforts and recruiting fellow alumni to volunteer as regional ambassadors. One of his proudest accomplishments was helping to create the Community Service Award, which he sees as a meaningful way to recognize the breadth of talent and impact among Hotchkiss graduates. “It’s another advertisement as to how significantly we have populated the world of accomplished people,” he says. “A lot of the people we reviewed for the Community Service Award had been on scholarship, and their hard work ethic came through in that process.”

Within his own family, Carnes helped foster a deep love for Hotchkiss. “There are a few apostrophe dates after the names if you’re a purist about it,” he says. His family tree includes several alumni, including his senior-year roommate-turned-brother-in-law, Dusty Reeder ’57, P’89, whom Carnes introduced to his sister. “Depending on the day, he either gives me credit or blames me for that,” Carnes quips.

Although his time in Lakeville lasted four years, Carnes views his Hotchkiss experience as the foundation for everything that followed. “As a human being, I think the ages of 14 to 18 are probably the most formative in terms of your mental and physical development,” Carnes says. “For me, most of it happened there. And it happened well. I have no regrets and am eternally grateful.”