Corey Griffin, ALS Ice Bucket Challenge key figure, dies at 27

Corey Griffin, a former Bain Capital manager who raised more than $100,000 for the ALS Association in the past week through the Ice Bucket Challenge, was killed in a diving accident. He was 27.

He died at 3 a.m. Aug. 16 at Nantucket Cottage Hospital in Massachusetts, after jumping from the roof of a two-story building into Nantucket Harbor, according to Carlos Moreira, a police spokesman. No other details were provided. Michael Greeley, a friend of Griffin's and family spokesman, said he suffered two crushed vertebrae in the accident.

"This is a kid who went from having a big smile on his face to being dead instantly," Greeley said Monday in a telephone interview.

In 2009, Griffin joined Bain Capital's venture capital division, Bain Capital Ventures, as an analyst in an internship program and stayed on for three years "because nobody wanted him to leave," said Jeff Schwartz, a founding partner of the unit. He was named an associate in 2012 and promoted to coverage manager the following year, according to a profile on the LinkedIn website.

A gregarious employee, Griffin made a big impression on his colleagues, Schwartz said.

"Every Monday the discussion was, 'Where was Corey this weekend?' " Schwartz said. "He was traveling all over the place."

Recently, Griffin was recruited by Schwartz as director of strategic initiatives at RANE, a New York-based information company for the securities industry that plans to start doing business in October. Among his duties was coordinating industry conferences, Schwartz said.

SEE PHOTOSRecent notable deaths

"Corey was dealing with an unbelievable range of people -- retired CIA agents and others in that business space," Schwartz said.

Diving off the building on Straight Wharf that was once home to the Juice Guys store that became Nantucket Nectars "is kind of a rite of passage" on the island, said Tiffany Lee, a bartender at the local Chicken Box restaurant. "I have tons of friends who have done it."

Griffin was among a group of fundraising friends of Pete Frates, a former captain of the Boston College baseball team whose struggle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis inspired a campaign involving dumping buckets of ice water over the heads of famous athletes and celebrities. ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Griffin had been canvassing business associates and friends on Nantucket, and had raised more than $100,000, Greeley said. The island lies about 30 miles south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The ALS Association announced Monday that $15.6 million in donations were received in August, up from $1.8 million during the comparable period in 2013.

Corey Christopher Griffin was born on Nov. 4, 1986, in Boston to Robert E. Griffin Jr. and Cathleen A. Griffin. He was raised in Hingham, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb, and Scituate, a nearby coastal town.

His father is president of the New England region for New York-based Cushman & Wakefield Inc., which describes itself as the world's largest closely held real estate services firm.

Griffin attended Thayer Academy in Braintree, another Boston suburb, and the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, according to a notice on the website of McNamara-Sparrell Funeral Home in Cohasset, Massachusetts. In 2010, he received a degree in entrepreneurship and finance from Babson College in Massachusetts.

A student athlete at Babson, Griffin was on the school's hockey team and suffered concussions. In 2013, he helped organize the NHL Alumni Pro-Am Hockey Tournament to benefit pediatric concussion work at Boston Children's Hospital.

Survivors include his parents; a brother, Michael Patrick Griffin; a sister, Casey Mara Griffin; and grandparents Frances Griffin, and Russell and Carol Bishop, according to the funeral home notice.