Moments before the Rover sat down with investment banker Jimmy Dunne III on September 11, 2026, Dunne received a text message from Avi Barak, Managing Director of financial services at Piper Sandler. Barak wrote, “One of my favorite Jimmy Dunne-isms is, ‘What would Bin Laden NOT want me to do?’” The dryly humorous mantra, originating after the attack on 9/11, has guided Dunne ever since.
Jimmy Dunne, a co-founder and managing partner of the investment bank Sandler O’Neill (later Piper Sandler), should have been working at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Instead, he was out golfing, attempting to qualify for the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship. That morning, Dunne lost 66 of the company’s 171 employees in their offices on floor 104 of the South Tower. Eighty-three were in the office that day. Seventeen made it out alive.
The Rover talked to Dunne about his life on Wall Street and his experiences in the aftermath of 9/11.
According to Dunne, the terrorists had two goals: “Number one, kill as many people as humanly possible, but anybody that they don’t kill, they want to leave a message of fear.”
“If they didn’t kill you, their second intention would be to get you to back down, to act in a cowardly, fearful way,” Dunne said.
“I was in the unique position of doing just the opposite of that,” Dunne told the Rover. “I was determined to do exactly the opposite of what [the terrorists’] intention was.” He continued, “Every capitalistic principle and principle of faith and dignity and human service that was possible—apply all of it immediately at its full strength.”
In the immediate aftermath of the wreckage, Sandler O’Neill returned to business with determination. Bank of America loaned them a small office, where the firm reopened the very next day, on September 12, 2001.
The company’s commitment went beyond the business, however. The firm vowed to attend as many of the 66 funerals as possible. Dunne personally committed to paying out the year’s salaries for all employees, including bonuses higher than anything previously received and benefits for several years. Lastly, he created a fund to send all of the children of the deceased to college, fully paid for.
On the 25th anniversary, Dunne’s colleague Barak wrote that his answer to the bin Laden question has “always been writing business on this date (September 11th).” He continued, “Today, we not only wrote a ticket, but we did it with Jack Connor, Jimmy Connor’s son.”
Jimmy Connor was a partner at Sandler O’Neill who died on 9/11. His son, Jack Connor, now works for the firm. He was one of the 76 beneficiaries of the college fund commitment.
“So,” continued Barak, “even slightly sweeter revenge.”
1993 Bombing
9/11/2001 wasn’t the first time Dunne narrowly avoided death at the hands of al-Qaeda in Two World Trade Center. Sandler O’Neill moved into the South Tower in February of 1993, just one week before the bombings.
In 1993, a group of al-Qaeda terrorists filled a U-haul truck with explosives and set it off in the basement floor C3 of One World Trade Center.
“The smoke had reached us in the other building within about five minutes from the time that that bomb went off,” Dunne told the Rover. At the time of the explosion, Dunne had an appointment to take ID photos for their new office in the World Trade Center. He didn’t attend the appointment, which was supposed to be on floor C2.
“There were seven people who died, which no one thinks about, although they are at the memorial now. And they all were on C2, which is where I was supposed to be,” Dunne said. “I have cheated death more than one time in that building.”
Even so, Islamist terror was not yet a settled reality in the minds of Americans.
“We had terrorism attacks on embassies and ships and things that were well outside of the U.S. That was the first time [there was an attack] inside the U.S. border,” Dunne noted.
Herman Sandler, co-founder and partner at Sandler O’Neill, a Russian Jew, was the first man Dunne heard identify the crash as terrorism. In the 17 minutes between the crash into the North Tower and the second plane hitting the South Tower, which spelled his death, Sandler discerned the perpetrator: terrorism.
Notre Dame
Dunne is a 1978 graduate of Notre Dame and has served on the Notre Dame Board of Trustees since 2010. He donated Dunne Hall, a men’s residence built in 2016 and delivered the commencement address in 2021.
In the address, he left no doubt that Notre Dame is the finest educational institution in the United States. Dunne told the Rover, “You can get excellence in academics, or you can get excellence in athletics, or you can get even some good things spiritually. But Notre Dame is a combination that does the entirety of the person, and it prepares you better than any other university in the world. I’m convinced of that.”
He highlighted many elite qualities, but he spent the most time reflecting on the lasting relationships he made here.
In the Friday interview with the Rover, Dunne’s three college roommates from Alumni Hall were also present: Rich Riley, John Coyne, and Stan Ziherl. Riley commented, “Anytime there’s been a major decision, these guys are involved in it.” He continued, “We go through this exercise on an annual basis where we talk about what our goals are for the next year. How are you going to be a better person to your family? You know, professionally, all those other kinds of things. Then we report on it every single week.”
Fifty years later, they are still holding each other accountable. “In this group, they don’t let you hide on this stuff,” Riley said.
Dunne reflected, “You go back 50 years ago, and now we’ve all had good fortune in our lives, but to me, [John Coyne] saying ‘Let’s room together’ was an early invitation that made a big impact.”
“There’s not a club in the world that I can’t get into now. That was the most important invitation of my life.”
Caleb Vaughan is a senior from Orono, MN studying chemical engineering. Piper Sandler executives can reach out with job offers to cvaugha2@nd.edu.