FLINT – Take two Upper Peninsula natives – one from Iron River and the other from Marquette – and you get an immediate connection.

The two young men met while working at Diplomat Specialty Pharmacy in Swartz Creek outside of Flint. And they were both on Wall Street when the company, in October 2014, became publicly traded and was launched on the New York Stock Exchange.

According to the two U.P. natives, the highlight of their careers was ringing the opening bell on Wall Street.

Ryan Ruzziconi is originally from Iron River and Sean Whelan is a native of Marquette.

They first met in 2010, when Whelan had been hired as the first chief financial officer at Diplomat. Ruzziconi had joined Diplomat a year earlier as general counsel when they were setting up Diplomat’s legal department.

Ruzziconi is first to admit that being born and raised in the Upper Peninsula has given him an advantage – a good education and a small community that supported him.

“I can honestly say I never felt disadvantaged in any way growing up in the U.P. The education I received at West Iron County High School prepared me well for college,” Ruzziconi said.

After graduating from West Iron, Ruzziconi went on to attend the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee.

Both Ruzziconi and Whelen decided to work for Diplomat, a relatively small company in Flint, because they wanted a challenge.

Ruzziconi said he was looking for an opportunity to come into a growing company in the health care sector and build a legal department.

Whelan agreed noting he was looking at a chance to put his own personal stamp on it and this was the challenge he was looking for.

Ruzziconi noted that his great-grandparents immigrated from Italy and settled in the U.P. during a time when jobs were in mining, the forest industry and other natural resource fields.

He said that both of his parents are retired and living in Iron River and he gets back home about 4-5 times a year.

“I still miss the summers in the U.P. – the clear lakes and some of my best friends still live in Iron River.”

After Whelan joined the Diplomat team, the company relocated to a 550,000 square foot plant recently vacated by General Motors. The Great Lakes Technology Center is located on the southside of Flint and gives the company room to grow. Diplomat looks to become a national player in the specialty pharmacy field.

Since Ruzziconi joined Diplomat in 2009, the company has more than quadrupled its workforce – going from 300 to more than 1,600 today.

In October 2014, Diplomat became a publicly traded company and launched on the New York Stock Exchange. And as CFO and general counsel, both Ruzziconi and Whelan were there – the culmination of laying the groundwork for Diplomat’s IPO.

Ruzziconi started the legal department at Diplomat from scratch and has also helped to create its human resources department. The two departments today have nearly 30 employees.