his father's alma mater, with a bachelor's in finance. He also received a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Connecticut in 1993. For two years Fetterman worked in Pittsburgh as a risk-management underwriter for Chubb. While Fetterman was studying at UConn, his best friend died in a car accident; this impacted Fetterman's life and career. After his friend's death, Fetterman joined Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, pairing with an eight-year-old boy in New Haven, Connecticut whose father had died from AIDS and whose mother was slowly dying from the disease. During his time as a Big Brother, Fetterman says he became "preoccupied with the concept of the random lottery of birth", and promised the boy's mother he would continue to look out for her son after she was gone. In 1995, he joined the recently founded AmeriCorps, and was sent to teach Pittsburgh students pursuing their GEDs. He later attended Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University, graduating in 1999 with a Master of Public Policy degree. Mayor of Braddock (2006–2019) Fetterman, who began his career working at an insurance firm, came to Braddock in 2001 to start an Out-of-School-Youth Program, helping local youth to earn their GED. He moved to Braddock in 2004. Braddock, a former industrial town known as the site of Andrew Carnegie's first steel mill, was hit hard by the decline of the U.S. steel industry. The town had lost 90% of its population since its peak in the 1920s, and was declared a financially distressed municipality in 1988; it has no supermarkets, gas stations or ATMs. Fetterman was attracted to Braddock by what he called its "malignant beauty." Fetterman served as the part-time mayor of Braddock and the full-time director of the city's youth program. He also founded a nonprofit organization, Braddock Redux, which he used to acquire and save properties in Braddock. Fetterman's father helped subsidize Fetterman financially because the position of mayor paid only $150 per month. He received payments of $54,000 from his father in 2015. Fetterman has several tattoos related to the Braddock community. On his left arm are the numbers 15104—Braddock's ZIP Code—and on the right are the dates of nine murders that occurred in the town while he was mayor. Elections Fetterman ran for mayor against the incumbent, Pauline Abdullah, in 2005. With backing from the town's young residents, he won the Democratic primary by a