Chris Gannon ’07

Chris Gannon ’07 has always wanted to have a career that enabled him to serve others and fight back against unjust systems, so “becoming a public defender was the logical thing for me to do as an attorney. I became an Army officer to serve our country in uniform during wartime because I feel obligated to stand with those who serve who didn’t have as many options as I did.” Gannon currently works as a criminal defense attorney at the Chester County Public Defender’s Office in West Chester and is a captain in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard serving as a Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG) officer specializing in administrative and contract and fiscal law. The lessons he learned at the Prep and beyond led him to his enthusiasm for fighting for the side of justice. 

“When I was at the Prep and later at Fordham, I took the Jesuit mantra of AMDG (for the greater glory of God)  to heart and promised myself that I would dedicate my career to doing the good work of God and helping others. It’s really served as a guiding principle in my life,” says Gannon. “Without that service-oriented, whole-person ideology, I wouldn’t be who I am today. Looking back on my years at the Prep, I think I was greatly influenced by teachers like Mr. (Steve) Oldham and Mr. (Ken) Kania.” These teachers taught Gannon to begin to think about terms like liberation theology. While some of his fellow students thought it was too progressive, these teachings led Gannon to the work he is doing now.

Another thing that Gannon learned at the Prep was perseverance, “to not quit when you have all the support you need to succeed,” he says. “A.P. Vergil was the hardest academic course I ever took, and I’m including everything I did in undergrad and law school in that assessment. I struggled a lot in Vergil, and it was just difficult to keep up with my peers, who were some of the smartest people at the school. I wanted to drop the class, but Mrs. (Nancy) Primick offered near-daily tutoring for me in her office after school, and she guided me towards doing well on the A.P. test and actually passing her class. Frankly, any other teacher probably would’ve let me drop the class after bombing that first test, but the personal attention and mentoring she gave me kept me accountable and on my toes. While she gave me a ton of personal attention in that class, she never gave me unearned favor. I’m more proud of that C in A.P. Vergil than I am of any of the As I got in college or law school.”

Initially, Gannon was drawn to the Prep for the “camaraderie and warm friendship between the students. I hadn’t seen that at the other schools I visited, so that was determinative for me.” And he says that this brotherhood feeling rang true in his experience, as “almost all of my oldest friends are people I met at the Prep.” As a student, he was heavily involved in the History Club, where he attended a club trip to Gettysburg. Gannon guesses that this trip may have led to his interest in military history, which may have in turn led to his decision to join the Army.

Gannon and his wife, Helen, a speech-language pathologist at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in North Philadelphia, were married in 2019, and live in the Manayunk neighborhood of Philadelphia. The couple recently welcomed their first child, Joshua this past month.