Daryl Lloyd ’03

Anyone who meets Daryl Lloyd will be immediately impressed by him. He is a successful businessman at the helm of several small businesses, friendly and gregarious, easy to speak with, and engaging. He is a true representative of a St. Joseph’s Prep education. 

 

Like most Prep grads however, Lloyd is more than business success and polish; he has a desire to be of service to his community and his alma mater. Lloyd is one of several alumni who have resurrected the African American Alumni Association (A4) to support students of color. For Lloyd, A4 played such a big part in his life that he wanted to make sure that current Prep students have the same opportunities.

 

“A group of us were at the Bakari Awards a few years ago and discussed how much A4 and the men who ran it meant to us,” Lloyd says. “I wanted to make sure that the opportunity I was afforded was available for other young men of color like myself.”

 

When Lloyd was a student, members of A4 were active as mentors, tutors, and guides to the Prep. The A4 mentors held get-togethers with the families of students, hosted monthly tutoring sessions, and organized college tours. Lloyd and his fellow alumni wanted to recreate that. 

 

“I realized from getting to know some current students of color didn’t have the same feelings of community that those of my generation did,” he says. “I was sad for them because while the Prep is a competitive, dynamic, engaging place, for many students of color, it can be difficult to navigate. When I was a student, A4 gave us the tools to better navigate through the Prep community. Alumni of color like HL Ratliff ’78, Wydell Ridley ’77, and Bob Jones ’72 became lifelong mentors of mine. They helped me during my time at the Prep and are still giving me life and career advice now.”

 

Lloyd and others, including Alonzo Jones ’03 and Sherman Washington ’05, have re-established many of the programs that were at the heart of their formation: tutoring, mentoring, social gatherings, and college tours. In addition, the group plans to connect alumni of color back to the school and to each other. “We really want to engage with more alumni of color, to build opportunities to connect not just with students but with one another,” Lloyd says

 

For Lloyd, this involvement is a way of giving thanks to a place that meant so much to him. He credits the Prep for helping him land his first job in government relations and for giving him the skills necessary to run multiple small businesses: The Lloyd Insurance Agency (an insurance brokerage firm); Lloyd Construction (construction management and general contracting company): New Jerseys Best (a door and window installation company).

 

Daryl leads these family-owned businesses with his mother Tamara Chatman Lloyd and sister Daisia Lloyd. “The benefit is that I get to manage these businesses with the two people who I trust the most in the world, to both grow the business with and to navigate challenges with,” he says. 

 

He also is committed to the academic success of the students in his local community and was elected in 2021 to the school board in Edgewater Park, NJ. That experience has also helped him at the Prep as he and other leaders of A4 recently met with Prep department chairs and administrators to discuss how they can partner to support students academically. 

 

Lloyd hopes that A4’s impact will help students of color find success at the Prep and beyond. Most of all, he wants them to feel comfortable so that they can be fully engaged members of the community. He wants the same for his fellow alumni of color. “The interesting thing about going to the Prep, you really get out of it what you put into it,” he says. I feel that to be the same working with A4. Anybody who gets involved in this space quickly gets to see that we get as much out of it as they do. To help a student succeed, to see families connect. This community is very special and being able to re-engage with it as an adult has been a great surprise.”