Rick Agresta was born in Jersey City, N.J., and grew up in Union City, N.J. He graduated from St. Peter’s Prep (Jersey City) in 1970, where he was active in football, track, and the yearbook. Rick received an A.B. from Columbia University in 1974 and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) in 1980. He started his career in 1974 with JCPenney in New York City. Later, he held marketing and sales management positions at several companies before becoming president at Terraillon, Inc. in 1992. He joined iSi North America, Inc. in 2002, where he was president and CEO until retiring in 2017.
Rick and his wife Joan have lived in Darien since 1987. They have three children and seven grandchildren. He belongs to the Silvermine Golf Club and is a founding Partner at Project Redwood (venture capital fund founded by Stanford GSB alumni to support social entrepreneurs). His leisure activities include golf, theater, travel, philanthropy, reading and all those grandchildren.
Nicholas Ord was born in St. Louis, Mo., and grew up in Montreal, Canada. Nick graduated from Beaconsfield High School in 1962, where he was active in intramural sports. He graduated from Brown University with an A.B. in 1966 and was involved with the Glee Club and the Brown Daily Herald. He graduated from the University of Western Ontario in 1968 with an advanced degree in business administration. His early years were in advertising in Montreal and Toronto with accounts such as Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Mountain Dew. After 10 years with General Foods in international product development and a two-year stint in Puerto Rico, he settled in Darien in 1985 and worked for the U.S. Beverage Division as group product manager. He formed his own consulting company, Intermark, LLC, in 1987 and was a consultant to the beverage industry for more than 20 years, retiring in 2009. Nick was recently widowed upon the death of his wife Gail of 50 years. He resides in Norwalk and has two children, a daughter living in Great Falls, Va., and a son living in Los Angeles, and five grandchildren. Nick belongs to the Tokeneke Club, is a past president of the Brown Club of Fairfield County and is a member of the Society of Automotive Historians. He is a lifelong car enthusiast and works as both volunteer and marketing director of the New England Auto Museum.
David Claiborne was born in Bronxville, N.Y., and grew up in Scarsdale, N.Y. Dave graduated from Edgemont High School in 1967, where he participated in football, basketball, baseball, student council, yearbook and social life. He graduated from DePauw University in 1971 with a degree in political science and was active in football and Phi Delta Theta fraternity. His work history includes 20 years with Westvaco Corporation in New York City, Connecticut and Sydney, Australia, mostly working in international business sales and general management. He followed this by running his own business in McLean, Va., where he consulted companies in obtaining contracts with the federal government. He retired in 2017. Dave and his wife Virginia live in Norwalk and have two children. Their daughter lives in Rowayton with her husband and their granddaughter. Their son, retired captain in the Marine Corps, and his wife live in Laurel, Md., and are expecting their first child. Dave is on the executive board of Squadron A Association in New York City. He is a past deacon and elder at Noroton Presbyterian Church. He is past board member of Darien United Way and past director of Darien Young Life. His hobbies include golf and tennis, and he enjoys playing the piano and singing in the church choir and other ensembles.
Brian Sutton was born in Los Angeles in 1958 and grew up in New City, N.Y., Ashtead, Surrey, England, and Greenwich, Conn. He graduated from Greenwich High School in 1976, where he was active in soccer and chess. He graduated from Gettysburg College in 1980, where he was active in soccer and Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. After graduation, he started working for Coopers & Lybrand, doing tax preparation and auditing. He moved to William Parr & Company in Darien in 1982 and opened his own office as Brian A. Sutton, PC in Darien in 1989. Brian lives in Darien with his wife Sally. They have two children, daughter Katie living in Hingham, Mass., and Brian, Jr., residing in Darien. Brian belongs to the Middlesex Club, American Institute of CPAs and the Connecticut Society of CPAs. His interests include chess, skiing, golf, travel and soccer, both playing and watching.
Eloy Nava was born in New York City in 1942 and graduated from Fort Lee High School in 1960. He graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a B.A. in management engineering in 1964, a B.A. in mechanical engineering in 1965 and an M.A. in management in 1970. He started his working career at the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics, becoming chief nuclear engineer and project manager responsible for testing nuclear reactors on submarines. In 1978, he joined a family export business in New York City as CFO that led to purchasing a clothing manufacturing plant in the Dominican Republic in 1984, importing men’s trousers to the United States. In 1993, the business was sold, and he started a career as certified financial planner in which he still is active with an office in downtown Darien. Eloy lives in Darien with his wife Diane. They have two children, a son living in Charleston, Mass., and a daughter living in New Canaan with four grandchildren. Eloy is a member of the Nantucket Anglers Club, Country Club of Darien and the Stamford Astronomy Club. His interests include fishing, golf, travel and astronomy.
Malcolm Hall was born in Glen Ridge, N.J., in 1956 and grew up in Upper Montclair. He graduated from Montclair Kimberley Academy in 1975, where he was active in Glee Club and varsity soccer, ice hockey and baseball. In 1979, he graduated from Lafayette College with a B.A., in history and was active in Chi Phi fraternity and varsity soccer. Malcolm started working as a limited partner from 1980-2002 at Mabon, Nugent and Co., Cedar Street Securities Corp. and Garban Corp. From 2002-2014, he was in management with Fimat, GFI Securities, Seaboard Securities, Whitaker Securities and Tullett Prebon dealing in corporate bonds/prefereds and new issue trading. Currently, Malcolm is vice president of Business Development for Darien Rowayton Bank. He and his wife Christine live in Darien. They have three children, a son entering Washington University in St. Louis this fall and two daughters, one living in Washington, D.C., and the other with one grandchild living in Georgia. Malcolm is a member of The Middlesex Club and the Darien Chamber of Commerce. For recreation, he enjoys platform tennis, soccer and politics.
Kennard Gregory, known as KG, was born in Hartford, Conn., and grew up in a small town north of there. He graduated from Wilbraham Academy in Wilbraham, Mass., in 1962. After attending Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa, for a few years, he enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve. He moved his wife and family to Stamford, Conn., prior to completing his reserve obligations and became a broker for Associated Yachts located then on Rowayton Avenue in Rowayton. In 1973, with Grove Ely, he created a yacht sales business at Jenkins Boatyard. In the spring of 1988, KG purchased a boatyard in Riverside, R.I., and relocated the family from Rowayton to Bristol, R.I., operating Bullock Cove Marine until 2010, when the boatyard was sold and the family moved to Essex, Conn. In 2012, at Grove Ely’s request, he returned to Rowayton to manage Wilson Cove Marina until 2017. KG has two daughters, one in Ohio with three children and one in Darien with two children. KG is a member of the Cruising Club of America, New York Yacht Club and Wilson Cove Yacht Club. His activities include boating and cruising in Maine in the summer and sunny-day skiing in the winter. He enjoys biking and tennis in all seasons. 
When eighty-one-year-old Jay Mendelsohn decides to enroll in the undergraduate seminar on the Odyssey that his son Daniel teaches at Bard College, the two find themselves on an adventure as profoundly emotional as it is intellectual. For Jay, a retired research scientist who sees the world through a mathematician’s unforgiving eyes, this return to the classroom is his ‘one last chance’ to learn the great literature he’d neglected in his youth–and, even more, a final opportunity to more fully understand his son. But through the sometimes uncomfortable months that follow, as the two men explore Homer’s great work together–first in the classroom, where Jay persistently challenges his son’s interpretations, and then during a surprise-filled Mediterranean journey retracing Odysseus’ legendary voyages-it becomes clear that Daniel has much to learn, too: for Jay’s responses to both the text and the travels gradually uncover long-buried secrets that allow the son to understand his difficult father at last. As this intricately woven memoir builds to its wrenching climax, Mendelsohn’s narrative comes to echo the Odyssey itself, with its timeless themes of deception and recognition, marriage and children, the pleasures of travel and the meaning of home. Rich with literary and emotional insight, An Odyssey is a renowned author-scholar’s most revelatory entwining yet of personal narrative and literary exploration.”