Liam Clancy

Liam Clancy ’25 came to UMass Lowell with an interest in business and a passion for motor sports. He found the perfect intersection of the two in River Hawk Racing, the student club that is the university’s chapter of SAE International (formerly the Society of Automotive Engineers).

Clancy, who majored in business with concentrations in management and entrepreneurship, served as president of during his senior year. He played a pivotal role in designing, building and presenting an open-wheel, formula-style race car at the Formula SAE competition at Michigan International Speedway.

“It was a great experience to work as a team in a high-pressure situation, taking what we learned in the classroom and applying it in a real-world competition,” says Clancy, who led a team of 20 students to Brooklyn, Michigan, for the three-day event, which merges engineering, project management and business strategy.

The car passed several critical inspections and drove on the track under its own power for the first time since 2016, which was a “huge success,” Clancy says. The team also earned high marks in the cost event, where an audit of its 400-page bill of materials revealed only four small errors.

Originally from Irvine, California, Clancy grew up watching motorsports events like the Baja 1000 and playing racing video games. Clancy’s family moved to Western Massachusetts when he was a teenager, and he chose to attend UMass Lowell because of its strong business and engineering programs.

“I was torn between the two,” says Clancy, who joined River Hawk Racing’s business team as a first-year student. “It was a perfect blend where I could do business and also give my insight to hands-on engineering stuff.”

As business team manager in his junior year, Clancy developed a procurement and inventory tracking system that improved efficiency and organization. The system made it easier for team members to request materials, track purchases and manage costs. He also spearheaded a fundraising effort that brought in more than $60,000 from campus departments, local businesses and alumni.

As president, Clancy learned that building a successful team meant learning to trust others with responsibility. He began delegating key aspects of the project, such as power train and electronics integration, to other team members.

“I used to always have to do everything myself, because if something went wrong, then I knew it was my fault,” he says. “One of the biggest challenges for me personally was overcoming that.”

Clancy plans to pursue an MBA in the Manning School of Business while continuing to support the River Hawk Racing team as an alumnus. He can see himself working in project management for a technology or motor sports company — and his dream is to start his own company that would manufacture affordable work trucks, similar to the popular kei mini trucks in Japan. 

“The Manning School of Business has taught me well enough that I could start something like that,” he says. “And the support from the school, even after you graduate, is great.”

Clancy says that serving as River Hawk Racing president has prepared him to lead his own company. After working on the car for two semesters, then driving 17 hours to Michigan for the three-day competition, he took a red-eye flight back to Boston and just made it to his Commencement.

“I was a little tired,” he says, “but it kind of got me used to being a CEO, when you have to be in three places on the same day.”