Who was Matthew?
Matthew Griffin Mancuso was born and raised in Rainbow Lakes, Parsippany, New Jersey. He attended Intervale Elementary School, Brooklawn Middle School, and Parsippany Hills High School (Class of 2011). Following graduation, Matthew traveled to North Carolina where he earned both his Bachelor and Masters degrees in Accountancy from Wake Forest University. During this time, Matthew earned top business school awards, his CPA certification, and internships with Dixon Hughes Goodman (Winston-Salem, NC) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (Boston, MA).
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In July 2016, Matthew began his professional career with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as a full time Associate in the International Tax practice at their Boston headquarters. He excelled in this role and was promoted (early!) to Senior Associate in January 2018. Although he spent most of his time at PwC as a Tax Specialist, Matthew had recently found his true passion in advancing the company’s technological progress and insights. In July 2018, Matthew was selected to join the inaugural class of Digital Accelerators (DA) at PwC, a program designed to give employees the reins to develop and train their peers on cutting-edge technology advancements in their field. In the short time that Matt was a part of the program, he excelled and became a “go-to” person for his DA colleagues nationwide. According to them, Matthew’s constant encouragement, positive energy, and excitement for the DA program made everyone want to work and learn alongside him.
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Outside of academic and professional settings, Matthew was best known for engaging in three types of activities: exploring, volunteering, and sticking his tongue out for photos. From skydiving, to kite-flying, to becoming a pseudo-expert on Boston’s public transportation system, to traveling and volunteering internationally, to developing the Supplies-Across-Skies donation concept alongside his best friends, Matthew was constantly on a mission to improve both himself and the world around him. Matthew was a Type 1 Diabetic since age 10 and had made some of his closest friends during his summers at Camp Nejeda, New Jersey's own sleepaway camp experience for youth with juvenile diabetes. When he came of age, Matthew became a camp counselor and was very proud of his position to mentor and lead his campers, as well as to work alongside staff members whom he greatly respected.
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Between October 31st and November 1st, 2018, Matthew was complaining of acute stomach pains and severe GERD/heart burn-type symptoms. Around 9:00 pm on November 1st, he traveled via Uber to the hospital to meet with the Mass General GI Team. By the time he arrived, he had a “thready" (or unstable) pulse and was suffering from hypoglycemia (low blood sugar, a situation that is fairly common, though life threatening to a Type 1 Diabetic). When the security team started bringing him into the hospital via wheelchair, he aspirated into his lungs which caused a cardiac arrest. Emergency responders provided him CPR for 75 minutes; once he was stable enough, they put him directly onto a life support machine to bypass his lungs and heart. Matthew's medical team was only able to complete an MRI on November 10th. The results found that the amount of time spent providing CPR resulted in a severely diffused and extensive anoxic ischemic brain injury from which he would not be able to recover. Following a week of continual testing, he passed away peacefully on the evening of November 16, 2018.
Matthew had always been the strongest member of our family.
He was taken from this earth, and the communities he loved and planned to give back to, way too early.
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We ask that you live your life in the same spirit that Matthew did; Live This Day.
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