Now, with the city's long-awaiting rebirth finally underway, Cawley is calling on his old school ties to be part of that rebirth. Not long ago, MBNA, the country's largest independent issuer of credit cards, opened a call center at Washington Street and University Avenue.

Now, with a burgeoning high-tech infrastructure in place and a ready job market, Newark is asking for more, and Cawley is responding by upping the projected jobs at the call center to 1,500. It's no coincidence that most of MBNA's top executives are also St. Benedict's graduates.

"St. Benedict's is definitely the reason we are locating more jobs in Newark," according to Cawley. Indeed, he opened a career development program at the secondary school a few years ago, and his company has also been providing scholarships.

The Newark facility is expected to become one of MBNA's top major international credit card centers over the next several years as the facility approaches full employment. It's located across from Newark's first telco facility, the former Macy's department store building Downtown. The latter counts Ameritech, IDT, IX Net, IXC Communications, Level 3, MCI Worldcom and Qwest as its telecommunications hotel "guests."

Belying its downtrodden reputation, Newark has become one of the country's most wired cities -- and it's been paying off. Besides the old Macy's building and IDT's world headquarters, the city has at least three other telecommunications facilities in operation or under construction.

"This operation is just the start for us," according to Cawley, who predicts that even more is in the cards.