Cory was an inspiration to me. He truly had a love for his family, his city, and his church. He encouraged me to have more confidence and seek out leadership opportunities in our CG and the diaconate. Cory is deeply missed. 

Praying for the Cates family. ❤️

Kari Jo introduced me to Cory in 2017. I was intimidated to meet Cory at first. I remember feeling that I wouldn’t be able to carry a conversation with someone that has a PhD in physics from Columbia. Remembering this makes me laugh today because anyone who knows Cory knows how approachable he was. In fact, this is something that I think I will miss the most about him. Anytime one of us in the NYC office had a question about anything, we would ask Cory. We all held Cory in high regard and wanted to get his opinion. It didn’t matter what the subject was, we wanted to get Cory’s feedback.

You would often hear in our office, “Hey Cory, what are your thoughts on this…”. And we would ask him anything, from business and tech, to Yankees baseball, to the reactors in the Chernobyl disaster, to using Robinhood and making financial decisions, to Wordle strategies, to fantasy football draft, to politics and religion, to the best Lenny’s sandwich, and more. We wanted to know what Cory would say about it. This was because he sincerely was the best at everything. He was our Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Cory counseled me through two major life decisions, and I will never forget his steady wisdom and care. I’m going to miss talking shop and running things by him. I will forever be grateful to Kari Jo for introducing me to Cory, who became the best boss I will ever have, my good friend, and like an older brother when I needed one in NYC.

Cory was indeed a special person in all dimensions and aspects of life.  I was instrumental in recruiting Cory into Credit Sussie as he finished and defended his PHd.  He found his niche creating Longevity securities. A huge success that demonstrated innovation, intellectual curiosity, tenacity and relationship building.  He excelled.

Further, we both had a love of basketball and pulled together a championship team in the NYC corporate league.  He was as good on the court as he was off.  He so enjoyed and was his happiest playing  that weekly competitive game (and winning :-)  )

I trust he will be recruited for many, many initiatives as he enters his next life.

Please celebrate his life--may he RIP.

I sat in the cubicle next to Cory for three years back in 2006. He was a pleasure to work with and one of the kindest people I have encountered. He would always share interesting stories about his family throughout the workday which we all enjoyed. Cory was always genuine.

I last bumped into Cory at our neighborhood Trader Joe's just days before the pandemic. We both waited on the long checkout line to haul food back to our families. We had a quick chat and he was as warm and charismatic as ever.

I'm sorry for your loss.