“For Me, Bishop’s Was Foundational”
As Mac Armstrong ’93 describes it, the Armstrong family has a “multi-faceted and multi-generational” relationship to The Bishop’s School. He’s part of the middle generation, one of three siblings who attended Bishop’s. During Mac’s time at the School, his father, David Armstrong, became president of the board of trustees; later, David became a Bishop’s history teacher and administrator before eventually leaving to head Landon School in Bethesda, Md.
Today, the next generation of Armstrongs is on campus. Mac’s eldest, Henry, graduated in 2025, and his middle children are Cooper ’27 and Elliott ’30. His youngest is in elementary school. “For me, Bishop’s was foundational,” he explains. “I learned how to be a student, but it also helped me enter the real world in a confident fashion. That experience was so formative that when my wife, Casey, and I moved back to Southern California in 2009, Bishop’s was in the forefront of the decision because I thought it could provide a similar foundation for our kids.”
“For me, Bishop’s was foundational. I learned how to be a student, but it also helped me enter the real world in a confident fashion.”
Through his siblings, Anne Miyao ’96 and Jake Armstrong ’00, sister-in-law, Kelsey Armstrong ’02, and now his own children, Mac has seen over and over how the School supports a huge diversity of interests and strengths — from his own days on the school paper and as an athlete, to his sister’s fine arts focus, to his oldest son’s passion for leadership. “At Bishop’s, there are so many different bedrocks where a student can anchor themselves,” he explains. “So many ways to discover who they are and develop a voice and confidence. Those avenues start with Bishop’s values that emphasize inclusivity and integrity and compassion and empathy.”
As the founder and CEO of Palomar, the $4B publicly-traded insurance company, Mac, who was a history major at Princeton, continues to find himself drawing on his Bishop’s education. “In my job, I need to have a keen sense of everything that’s going on,” he explains. “That ability to have a comprehensive view was really formed at Bishop’s, where I learned how to multitask and how to balance my efforts, whether it was a job, or learning how to engage with people that have differing views and perspectives.”
As a co-chair of the Lead with Purpose campaign, Mac is now focused on bringing an even better version of that experience to even more students. “Bishop’s does a remarkable job of adapting while remaining rooted in its values and its history,” he says. “’I’ve seen how the School has evolved over the last 40 years, and it’s a much greater platform today than it was in 1987. Thinking about the campaign and what Bishop’s could be in 2036 or 2037 is what excites me most.”