Month: September 2020

David (Dave) Cator was born in Portland, Oregon on December 10th, 1952. At a very young age his family moved to the San Francisco Bay area, living in Menlo Park, Calif., and later to a small town, Portola Valley. He graduated from Woodside High School in 1971 and from the University of California at Berkeley in 1975.

Dave’s first job was working for a New York-based publisher and later a regional newspaper before being hired by Sunset magazine in 1979. Dave worked as an executive in the magazine publishing industry for the next 40 years, with magazines such as Smithsonian and Inc including 23 years at Time Inc.

Upon his retirement from publishing in January, 2020, Dave worked to earn his certification as a Recovery Coach, helping those who are on their recovery journey.

Dave has three daughters and has lived with his wife Susan in Darien for the last 28 years. Dave loves his family time, vacations, exercise, golf and his Labradors. He is a member of the Wee Burn Country Club.

John Griswold grew up in Greenwich, Conn. He attended Greenwich Country Day School and Pomfret School, graduating in 1963. He earned a B.A. in English Literature at Yale University in 1967 and played varsity soccer, intramural hockey and was fullback on the Yale Rugby Club’s first fifteen. Following graduation from Yale he taught English and Reading at Middlesex  Junior High School in Darien and coached the soccer team. In 1971 he joined an advertising agency in Greenwich, and later moved to New York where he worked on the American Express account at Ogilvy and Mather. In 1985 he changed careers, joining a small financial advisory partnership in Stamford organizing and marketing a hedge fund of funds. In 1992 he joined Commonfund as head of Client Services, Research and Publications. He founded Commonfund Institute in 1999, serving as its Executive Director developing investor research studies and running nonprofit institutional investor education at the Endowment Institute at the Yale School of Management. John retired from Commonfund in 2016 but continues to consult with higher ed and foundation boards and investment committees.

John lives with his wife Chichi in Stamford and belongs to the Yale Club of New York and the Black Hall Club in Old Lyme, where he has a second home. He enjoys travel, boating, golf, bicycling and paddleboarding.

Rodger F. Smith was born and raised in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin in 1941. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin with a B.S in Chemical Engineering and an MBA in finance. He has been Chair of the Dean’s Advisory Board of the Wisconsin School of Business. He was also Chair of the Trust Advisory Committee of Tau Beta Pi (the engineering honorary fraternity) for 34 years. He has also led the Investment Committee for the 401(k) plan for Greenwich Associates and recently joined the Investment Committee of his fraternity foundation.

After 10 years working for the CFO at Allis Chalmers in Milwaukee, Rodger moved his first wife (deceased in 1999) and three sons to Darien in 1976. He joined Charley Ellis to help found and grow Greenwich Associates, a research and consulting business, where he worked with asset management firms, including PIMCO. He also founded Greenwich Associates’ business in Canada and London.

Rodger and his second wife Masha have lived in Tokeneke since 1986, where he is currently President of the Tokeneke Tax District. His three sons live in Darien, Wilton, and New York City. He is a member of Wee Burn Country Club, The Yale Club of New York City, and the Tradition Golf Club in Palm Springs. Rodger is an avid golfer and is working on a book about his family going back to the 1800s. His interests include investing, public affairs, travel, Green Bay Packers, and the Wisconsin Badgers.

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