Mulcahy was born in December of 1974, and grew up in Evergreen Park. In his early childhood he moved to Oak Lawn and attended St. Linus elementary/middle school. He attended Marist High School and was among the graduating class of 1993.
While a student at Marist, Mulcahy had many influential figures.
“Everybody here was impactful. Mr. Co was the Western Civilization teacher, and had a fascinating class that taught me how to study,” said Mulcahy. “Br. Hank Hammer was not a teacher, but he was the student council moderator and I learned a lot from him.”
Overall, Mulcahy had a very positive experience with Marist and its community.
“I viewed my time at Marist as being very formative for me, a great experience. Most of my friends, who are still my friends today, I met through Marist,” Mulcahy said.
Mulcahy later attended the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and decided to major in English.
“I had AP credit, however, I loved to read, and I’m more of a humanities person rather than a stem person,” he said. “and learning how to be persuasive and effectively communicate in writing would be to my benefit.”
After graduating from the University of Illinois, Mulcahy briefly attended Loyola Law School. Throughout his college years, he was under the impression that he would attend law school. However, during the first day, he was convinced that law would not be a suitable career for him.
“I went to law school for a day and a half, and I didn’t think it was that hard. They did a really good job at making sure everybody in that cohort knew what they were signing up for, and whether or not, with that knowledge, they still wanted to do it,” he said.
Mulcahy did not want to “close the book entirely” on law school and decided to defer his classes for the next 3 years. At this time, Mulcahy was at an impasse; he had to choose a career.
“With an English degree, and no longer attending law school, I thought I could either teach, or learn how to sell,” he said. He opted for the latter, and would begin a lengthy career as a salesperson.
For the past 25 years, Mulcahy has been working in sales and leadership roles. However, in 2022, Mulcahy began his second career as a teacher and applied to Marist High School.
Mulcahy began teaching this past August. He teaches personal finance, and is the moderator for the RedHawk Investment Club.
More notably, Mulcahy teaches the IDEA class. The IDEA class is an elective for upperclassmen that allows students to become their own entrepreneurs. During the class, Mulcahy teaches students the aspects of starting and maintaining a business.
“At the end of the year, all of the teams that take this class compete in a Shark Tank-style event. A winner is crowned, and they receive $10,000 from Marist to start their business,” he said.
Mulcahy is very passionate about his students, and wants them to achieve their greatest potential. He does not have a definite method of teaching, but tries to incorporate his previous teachers’ methods with his own students.
“Being so new as a teacher, I’m still figuring it out,” said Mulcahy.
Mulcahy is the father of four children, and with that comes very little free time. “I still like to read, and enjoy dog walks… My kids’ hobbies are my hobbies,” he said.
