Located in his room is a photo of Mr. Boccella, also known as Mr. B, flipping pizza dough before he started teaching eighteen years ago. Flipping pizza dough is one of Mr. B’s secret talents–he learned during his time working at his Grandfather’s pizza shop called Sal’s.
The shop, named after Mr. B’s grandfather Salvatore Boccella, first opened in the 1950’s. His grandfather, who always dreamed of starting his own restaurant, began with a Germantown location and eventually opened locations in the Plymouth Meeting Mall, Warrington, and Horsham.
“My siblings and I worked there all throughout high school and college, and it allowed us to spend a lot of time as a family,” Mr. B said.
Eventually, Mr. B went into sales for Motorola since he has always been interested in doing something business related. He was one of the first people to sell the newly invented flip phone, which had no purpose other than to make calls. After two years of working for Motorola in Doylestown, he went back to the pizza business for a few years until all the shops were sold.
Because of the long hours at the pizza shop and his desire to spend more time with his four children, Mr. B decided to switch careers to teaching.
Teaching was something he had thought about doing for a while, so he went back to school to take the required education classes.
In 2007, he began teaching seventh and eighth graders at Saint Rose of Lima School and eventually moved to Mater Dei Catholic School after the two schools merged.
Throughout his time at Saint Rose and Mater Dei, he was also helping students get their associates degrees at the Lansdale School of Business. He taught classes such as Finance, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship..
In 2020, Mr. B started working at the Mount where he now teaches classes including AP Microeconomics, Personal Finance, and Accounting.
Mr. B loves teaching at the Mount and interacting with his students. “It’s the students that get me through the day,” Mr. B said.