Month: November 2023

Daniska, Mike

November 28, 2023 / Webmaster

Mike has lived his entire life in Fairfield County, initially in Redding and the last over 30 years in Bethel. He received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, magna cum laude, from the University of Bridgeport in 1988 and an MBA in Finance from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at NYU in 1999. Mike worked about 10 years for the Sikorsky Aircraft subsidiary of United Technologies Corp where he designed and developed helicopter rotor systems. His last 25 years have been spent in various financial and business oversight capacities including investment banking and private equity acquisitions across a variety of industries, in Corporate Ventures at Union Carbide, and more recently in asset management developed a proprietary algorithmic high frequency trading program. He currently manages a full spectrum of family investment activities along with other financial and various responsibilities through his family office.

Mike’s late father-in-law, Howard “Tom” Thompson was a long-time member of the DMA (then SMA), including a former President. Mike and his wife Cynthia, who grew up in Darien, have two children in the Boston area, their son, a biologist, and daughter, who is currently in grad school and a New England Patriots cheerleader since the team’s last Super Bowl win with Tom Brady in 2018. Mike has been a member of the CT Hedge Fund Association for a number of years and enjoys vintage and newer sports cars, boating, and jogging with his three dogs.

Walker, Steve

November 27, 2023 / Webmaster

Steven grew up and attended school in Manchester, England. His siblings and mother still reside in the U.K. (London area) and he tries to visit as often as practical. After a brief stint with Nat West bank in the U.K. he moved to Denmark in his mid 20’s where he began a career in banking, specifically within Foreign Exchange, trading and sales. After close to five years in the Copenhagen area an opportunity arose to take an ex-pat position in the New York office of one of the largest banks in Denmark, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The initially limited ex-pat stint led to a permanent stay in the U.S. and Steven became a proud citizen in 2010. Having moved to Darien with his wife in 1996 they raised two daughters, both of whom went through the public school system in town and are now young adults making their way in New York City.

Steven is a keen golfer playing mostly at the public courses in our area. Sailing is another interest that he has picked up later in life and the family are members of Stamford Yacht Club. Paddle tennis, Pickleball and a daily three mile brisk walk round out the regular activities, though skiing (downhill and cross-country) feature from time to time. Travel, especially to the U.K. and Scandinavia to catch up with friends and family, is always a treat.

Hike Greenwich Point Park, Dec 7, 2023. 10:30

November 16, 2023 / Webmaster

“HIKING” GREENWICH POINT PARK

7 TOD’S DRIFTWAY, GREENWICH

THURSDAY DECEMBER 7, 2023

10:30

We will be walking around Greenwich Point starting at 10:30 am.

NOTE THAT THIS START TIME IS LATER THAN OTHER HIKES. We will be walking about 3 miles over flat, mostly paved or packed gravel paths, which should take us about an hour and a half.

Greenwich Point is a 147 acre property owned by the Town of Greenwich which bought the property in 1945. The peninsula, surrounded on three sides by water, was the private estate of J. Kennedy Tod who purchased the property in the 1880s. Greenwich Point offers spectacular views of Manhattan and the Greenwich shoreline. It is a beautiful place to walk and only available to non-Greenwich residents (without a substantial fee) during the months of December-April.

We will assemble in the first parking lot on the right after you pass the gatehouse. Greenwich Point can be windy and cold so layer up! Dogs on a leash are permitted and, as always, bring guests.

We will have an optional lunch at Lugano in Old Greenwich.

Contacts:

Dave McCollum dgmccollum63@gmail.com and 203-858-5688

Robert Plunkett rgplunkett1@gmail.com and 203-246-2898

HIKING GREENWICH POINT

DECEMBER 7, 2023

The scenery at Greenwich Point never disappoints. Even on a cold and cloudy day, there is so much to look at along the shore and inside the park itself. A hearty group of 23 DMAers and guests (plus two dogs) walked about 3 miles in an hour and a half. Some of the group were first timers to the site and were impressed with its size and beauty, not to mention the history of the Tod family’s ownership and the remains of the original mansion. Marilyn Parker’s superb photographs capture the day perfectly!

The ingenuity of DMA members was on display again at lunch after the hike. Out of the original 23, 16 opted to join the lunch at Lugano restaurant in Old Greenwich. An addition 3 skipped the hike and just came to lunch! Apparently the post hike lunches have become an attraction in themselves!

Dave McCollum

Robert Plunkett

Book Club: Horse by Geraldine Brooks, Feb 14, 2024

November 15, 2023 / Webmaster

A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack.

New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.

Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse–one studying the stallion’s bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.

Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.

In preparation for our discussion next Wednesday of the novel Horse, by Geraldine Brooks, below is a link to a 7-minute PBS interview with the author that has very relevant content and a high production value:

PBS Interview with the author.

Book Club: The Road to Surrender” by Evan Thomas, Jan 10, 2024

November 12, 2023 / Webmaster

A riveting, immersive account of the agonizing decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan–a crucial turning point in World War II and geopolitical history–with you-are-there immediacy by the New York Times bestselling author of Ike’s Bluff and Sea of Thunder.

At 9:20 a.m. on the morning of May 30, General Groves receives a message to report to the office of the secretary of war “at once.” Stimson is waiting for him. He wants to know: has Groves selected the targets yet?

So begins this suspenseful, impeccably researched history that draws on new access to diaries to tell the story of three men who were intimately involved with America’s decision to drop the atomic bomb–and Japan’s decision to surrender. They are Henry Stimson, the American Secretary of War, who had overall responsibility for decisions about the atom bomb; Gen. Carl “Tooey” Spaatz, head of strategic bombing in the Pacific, who supervised the planes that dropped the bombs; and Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, the only one in Emperor Hirohito’s Supreme War Council who believed even before the bombs were dropped that Japan should surrender.

Henry Stimson had served in the administrations of five presidents, but as the U.S. nuclear program progressed, he found himself tasked with the unimaginable decision of determining whether to deploy the bomb. The new president, Harry S. Truman, thus far a peripheral figure in the momentous decision, accepted Stimson’s recommendation to drop the bomb. Army Air Force Commander Gen. Spaatz ordered the planes to take off. Like Stimson, Spaatz agonized over the command even as he recognized it would end the war. After the bombs were dropped, Foreign Minister Togo was finally able to convince the emperor to surrender.

To bring these critical events to vivid life, bestselling author Evan Thomas draws on the diaries of Stimson, Togo and Spaatz, contemplating the immense weight of their historic decision. In Road to Surrender, an immersive, surprising, moving account, Thomas lays out the behind-the-scenes thoughts, feelings, motivations, and decision-making of three people who changed history.

Bennett, Jay

November 9, 2023 / Webmaster

Born in 1957, Jay was raised in the Philadelphia suburb of Gladwyne, so you’ll have to put up with his rabid support of the Eagles and Phillies.

After graduating from the Haverford School (1975), Jay attended Princeton University, where he played varsity lacrosse and graduated magna cum laude with a BA in Political Economy (1979). More importantly, he met his future wife Mary (1981) junior year and they eventually married in 1984. Following graduation, he entered the bank training program of Manufacturers Hanover Trust and earned his AVP title by 1983 before leaving to attend Harvard Business School (1985).

Jay’s 2nd-year job search led him to Greenwich Associates, the leading research-based consulting firm for institutional financial services, where he subsequently spent his entire career. Working directly with the founder, Charley Ellis, Jay became a partner running the firm’s equity & investment banking sectors and consulted with the major banks/brokers in the U.S., Canada, London and Hong Kong. Upon the firms’ March 2020 sale to CRISIL/Coalition, he shifted his focus to developing a new investment management mandate pricing tool and then fully retired in July 2021.

Jay and Mary moved to Darien in 1992 and were lucky enough to have four children, all of whom attended Darien High School before heading off to college. Their two older daughters are married and have three children between them, while their son is working in NYC and their other daughter is working in Boston.

Since retirement, Jay has been able to spend even more time with his family as well us pursue all the athletic and social opportunities afforded by Tokeneke Club and Wee Burn Country Club and commit to reading 75 books a year. On the volunteer front, he recently completed a 6-year term as Trustee for the Darien Library and then joined Future 5 as a College Prep coach. In addition, he is an active supporter of the Norwalk Grassroots Tennis & Education program, GOBS tennis and an Africa-targeted AI-based health platform with his freshman-year college roommate.