First-Generation Rutgers Alumni National Leaders in Senior Care
May 12, 2025
Phil Scalo and Roberto Muñiz influence with compassion the care of millions in nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, and affordable housing for seniors, as well as others in need of aging services.
Phil Scalo grew up in Lodi, New Jersey, his family’s home close enough to the aviation plant where his father worked that he could walk there when it snowed or if their car broke down. In the early 1970s, Scalo enrolled at Rutgers College in New Brunswick. He was the first in his family to go to college.
In the same period, Roberto Muñiz, who had lived the first 14 years of his life in Puerto Rico, moved to Elizabeth, New Jersey with his mother and their sprawling family, where they struggled to make ends meet. Through volunteering in high school at a hospital that gave him free meals, Muñiz made connections who helped him find his way to Livingston College at Rutgers in Piscataway. He, too, was the first in his family to go to college.