Building a Foundation

This story appears in the August 2025 edition of The Met Golfer Extra. The full issue can be read here.

Long Island Caddie Scholar Julia Posillico graduated from College of the Holy Cross in May after a productive four years that included writing and defending a thesis, editing the business and economics student newspaper, and studying abroad in Florence. She just began her first job with Blumenfeld Development Group, a real estate development firm based on Long Island.

Throughout high school and college, Posillico worked at Eisenhower Park Golf Course, where she worked at PGA camps and worked in the pro shop. Her work in service to golf made her eligible for a caddie scholarship from the LICSF.

Posillico was a double major in Italian and economics at Holy Cross, with the two realms intersecting during her semester abroad in Florence. While there, she took economics courses in Italian at the University of Florence.

“I really enjoyed taking my language requirements and I got the opportunity to study abroad at the University of Florence for the fall semester of my junior year,” says Posillico. “It was fun and challenging.”

Posillico’s mother – whose first language was Italian – still has family that lives in southern Italy.

The trip abroad wasn’t the only highlight of Posillico’s academic career at HolyCross. She also wrote and defended an 18-month thesis on consumers ‘ willingness to pay for allergy-safe foods when she was accepted into HolyCross’s school of business and the economics honors program. For the thesis, she surveyed around 700 people with food allergies.

“I have a lot of allergies, so it’s a topic that is important to me,” says Posillico. “I see how much more expensive food – the same food – is, and it just has that nut-free label on it. So, I see how much more consumers are willing to pay for that label.”

The whole process of data collection, research, understanding and using the data, and presenting the end-product made for a stressful 18 months for Julia, but all those experiences will now help her in her professional career.

“It definitely carried over to my new job,” says Posillico. “Bringing that confidence into everything I do and not questioning and second-guessing myself.”

At Blumenfeld, she works on the development team with compliance and the firm’s properties. As she works her way through training, she will get more involved with financial analysis.

Writing a thesis and studying abroad would be enough for most college students. Not for Posillico, though. She was also involved with the College Street Journal – the business and economics newspaper at Holy Cross. Her involvement started when she was a freshman, when the paper debuted on campus, and her role grew as she progressed through school and eventually served as editor in chief as a senior.

“We had alumni, professors, and a lot of students write for us,” addedJulia. “I was the director of marketing and social media as a freshman and by the time I was a senior I was the editor in chief.”

Julia drew from her experiences working at Eisenhower Park to manage the different writers and tasks while working at the newspaper.

“Because golf is something I know so much about, I am very comfortable and I was able to work on my communication skills with a wide range of people, from seven-year-old campers to older gentlemen in the pro shop,” says Posillico. “I got good at handling a lot of different personalities.”

Julia and her brother Robert have a shared bond through the LICSF and HolyCross – Robert caddied at Cold Spring Country Club and also received a scholarship from the LICSF, attending Holy Cross and graduating in 2023.

All these experiences and skills learned from her time at Eisenhower, at Holy Cross, and at the University of Florence have given her the foundation to be confident and successful in her career.