As another school year commences at Hampton Bays High School, the faculty and students have the opportunity to meet the new members of the school staff. One of them is Mr. Verdone, who teaches College and Career Exploration to the freshman class, College Accounting, and Sports Marketing.

Aside from a brief period working as a leave replacement in Smithtown, this is his first time teaching. “I used to be an accountant,” he told The Tide staff in an interview on Monday. “I was in audit for public companies. The first client I staffed was J.P. Morgan. I worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the big four accounting firms.” His job involved testing long term debt trades and interest expense calculations.

He says that the decision to switch to teaching from accounting was one that he was happy to have made. “I still feel really excited to be at work every day,” he told us. He also mentioned that he enjoys interacting with staff and students, saying, “It’s just a really nice environment to work in. Everyone’s really nice and friendly.”

His time outside of school is important to him as well. “I surf a bit, and I like to snowboard, and hang out with my dog a lot.” Growing up, he would frequently take snowboarding trips. Thus far, he has only been to mountains on the east coast, but he’s hoping to plan a trip to Breckenridge in Colorado at some point in the future. Outside of the United States, he said, “I really want to go to Whistler in British Columbia, and I would love to go to Japan one day.”