Born in New York City to
Karl Negley Mellon and Anne Stokes Bright, Mellon was raised in Manhattan,
Palm Beach, Florida, and
Northeast Harbor, Maine. He attended
The Phelps School, a boys' boarding school in
Malvern, Pennsylvania, followed by college at the
Wharton School of the
University of Pennsylvania, where he studied management. Mellon's father abandoned the family when he was five years old, before dying by suicide in 1983. founder of the
Mellon Bank (now part of
The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation). Mellon was named after his paternal grandfather, Matthew Taylor Mellon, who was the elder son of businessman
William Larimer Mellon Sr. On his maternal side, Mellon was a direct descendant of
Anthony Joseph Drexel, a banker whose investment firm was a precursor to
Drexel Burnham Lambert. Mellon maintained associations with
Drexel University and
Carnegie Mellon University, both of which were founded by family members. He was also involved with the
National Gallery of Art, the core of whose collection was donated to the nation by his great-uncle,
Andrew Mellon. In the 1990s, he worked on developing a documentary on the life of philanthropist and saint
Katharine Drexel. ==Career==