Category: Members (Page 1 of 27)

Mark McCarthy grew up in Springfield, Mass. He met his wife Leslie while attending graduate school in Chicago. They have lived in Darien for 32 years, and raised their three sons here. All three, Connor (32), Brad (30) and Ryan (27), attended the Darien public schools and were active in Post 53, lacrosse and golf throughout their school years. Today, they live in Manhattan, and Mark’s oldest son Connor is engaged, with a wedding date set for July 2027.

Mark and Leslie spend winters in Bonita Springs, Fla. and are members of the Bonita Bay Club. They are also members of Woodway Country Club, where Mark is an avid golfer and Leslie plays on the tennis team.

He has been a member of the Darien Boat Club for more than three decades and enjoys boating and fishing on Long Island Sound. He’s an avid music fan and plays guitar.  In addition, Mark has been a board member of the Lincoln Center Real Estate Council in New York.

Mark spent most of his career in commercial real estate in New York and recently retired from Shorenstein Properties after 27 years. His responsibilities included real estate acquisitions, dispositions and debt capital markets.

Mark graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with a B.B.A., and from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business with an M.B.A. Mark is also a Certified Public Accountant.

Allan Andersen was born and raised in Denmark, where he lived until 1997. A competitive swimmer and squash player in his youth, he remains an avid scuba diver today.

He holds a Master of Science in Economics. He began his career in management consulting before finding his calling in high-tech software, focusing on product management and strategy. In 1991, he co-founded a software company with a friend, which was acquired in 1997 by Long Island-based Computer Associates (CA). Following the acquisition, Allan relocated to the United States to support the integration.

It was through the CA acquisition that Allan met his future wife, Ina Ghaznavi, who was part of the deal on the US side. Ina was born in Switzerland to an Iranian family and moved to the United States at a young age. Ina and Allan are passionate about Africa, education, and technology and have traveled to Africa nearly twenty times since 2010, working to bring advanced learning technologies to children in rural communities.

In 2021, they relocated to Darien, Connecticut, to be closer to Riverside, where their three grandchildren live — a move they say they only regret not having made sooner.

For the past eleven years, Allan has focused on advancing artificial intelligence, specializing in automation and conversational AI — technology now widely recognized as Agentic AI.

Jim Baclawski and his wife, Rebecca, maintain their primary residence in Amherst, New Hampshire, but have also made Darien a second home. They feel particularly fortunate that all three of their children live here in Darien—Diana Turowski and her husband, Edward; John Baclawski and his wife, Brittany; and James Baclawski and his wife, Christy—along with their nine grandchildren. With their entire immediate family in one town, having a place of their own here was an easy decision, as they spend a great deal of time with family.

Jim was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and attended the University of Notre Dame, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and swam on the varsity swim team. He later earned an MBA from Babson College in Boston and began his career with Pricewaterhouse on the audit staff.

Jim spent the balance of his career in energy finance. He worked at Prudential Capital as a senior lender to investor-owned electric utilities, financing power plants, fuel and utility fleets, and energy projects using a variety of fuel sources. He subsequently worked in energy finance at Heller Financial, later acquired by GE Capital, and as an equity investor with Lakeside Energy. Jim eventually formed his own company, Emerald Renewable Diesel, to develop projects in the renewable fuels sector.

Jim’s primary interest in Darien is family, and he especially enjoys watching his grandchildren participate in Darien sports, including football, lacrosse, basketball, field hockey, and baseball. Jim is joining the DMA to get to know more of the guys in town and take part in the many activities the Association sponsors.

Outside of family, Jim is an avid snow skier and works hard to ski 30 days a year in New England, the Rocky Mountains, and Europe. He is always looking for a ski buddy. During the offseason, he works out at the YMCA to stay in shape for the next ski season.

Jim is also a mediocre tennis player and golfer and has yet to try pickleball—but that may be coming soon.

Ralph Corasaniti lives in Norwalk, CT, with his wife of 44 years, Laurie Corasaniti. Laurie is a retired registered nurse. He has three grown children and six grandchildren – soon to be seven. Four of the grandchildren live in Monroe, CT, and two live in Delray Beach, Florida.

Ralph was raised in Bayonne, NJ, and has lived in Norwalk since 1984. He attended Fairfield University and Pace Graduate School of Business. He has worked as a senior tax and financial advisor for a family office based in Darien for the last thirty years. The family office owns operating businesses and has a sophisticated investment subsidiary. Ralph retired from the operating arm of the company in 2022 but remains active as a trustee/advisor to the family office principals.

Ralph is a member of Silvermine Golf Club and plays golf regularly throughout the year. He is also an avid runner, bicyclist, and enjoys reading, listening to music, and playing guitar. Ralph is a longtime active member of the Norwalk Exchange Club. He is a past president and board member of the Exchange Club, participates in several fundraising events a year, and ran its golf outing for over ten years.

He looks forward to engaging with the DMA as both a passive member attending meetings and an active participant in committees and fundraising.

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Chris and his wife, Tricia, have lived in Darien since 1986, where they raised their four children and now enjoy spending time with their four grandchildren.

Chris grew up in Pittsburgh as one of eight children and remains a loyal Steelers fan. Tricia grew up on Long Island as one of seven. With such a large extended family, there is always something going on—and always someone to visit.

Chris earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Health Administration from Duke University.

He retired after a 40-year career in municipal finance. He began as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers before moving into asset management and private equity, where he helped launch several businesses that created high-yield municipal investment funds for institutional investors. He concluded his career in private equity investing in high-yield and distressed municipal bonds.

Chris and Tricia are members of the Middlesex Club and keep a boat at the Darien Boat Club. Chris enjoys paddle and pickleball and, with his siblings and cousins, is working on a project to research and document their family history.

David Miller moved to Darien on Memorial Day weekend of 2004 and lived in Noroton Bay for the last 22 years. He retired in January 2026 from a 35-year investment banking career, culminating as CEO of Credit Suisse First Boston Investment Bank.  He and his wife Lisa relocated to Paradise Valley, Ariz but will spend summers in Darien.

David married Lisa in California in 1998, where their first two children, Lauren and Michael  were born.  After moving to Darien, Beck arrived!  All three children were raised in Darien. The Millers’ favorite family activities are traveling and eating out. David enjoys golf at Wee Burn Country Club and more recently, pickleball at Cherry Lawn Park and The Sports Haus in Norwalk.

He graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in electrical engineering in 1987  and an M.B.A. in finance in 1988.  Go Big Red!

John Colon is originally from New Orleans but came north to attend Dartmouth College, graduating in 1982. After a brief stint in investment banking in New York, he attended Harvard Business School and subsequently joined Greenwich Associates for the remainder of his career, retiring as a senior advisor in 2021.

John and his wife Deborah moved to Darien in 1991, where they raised their three children, David, Sarah and Michael, all of whom are Darien High School graduates. More recently, Deborah and John joined the down-sizing craze and moved to west Norwalk but can still see Darien from their backyard.

John’s interests include boating, skiing, paddle, pickleball, golfing and a bit of volunteering.

Richard Chu and his wife Tina have lived in Darien for 15 years. Born in Shanghai, China, just after the Second World War, Richard attended primary and secondary schools in Japan run by Marianist missionaries, French Alsatian, Spanish and American brothers who taught classes entirely in English and inspired him to attend college in the United States. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1967 and did graduate work in physics at Stony Brook University before shifting to business school at Columbia University. Richard spent his entire career with Cowen. He focused initially on Japanese equities, and then heading the technology research team in Cowen’s institutional equities and technology banking business — first from New York, then Boston, back to New York, and finally Boston. After more than 20 years in Dover, Mass., Richard and Tina moved back to Fairfield County in 2012 to be closer to their two daughters and four granddaughters, who all live New York City. They were excited by younger daughter Cathy moving her family to Darien in 2027 to be close to all that this incredible town has to offer, including nearby babysitting help on call!

Richard counts as big challenges: being a diehard Red Sox and Patriots fan in Connecticut; being an avid tennis player trying to get back into it after triple bypass surgery last year; and staying atop the constant and mindboggling changes in the technology world.

Mark Wright has lived in the Noroton Bay area of (Darien since 1997. He received a B.A. degree from Northwestern University and an M.B.A. from Vanderbilt University.

He describes himself as a serial venture capital backed software as a service technology entrepreneur. He served as CEO of private and public companies. Mark is one of a handful of entrepreneurs who put together the essential technical and data analytics framework to enable digital media and online shopping and retailing. Immediately before retiring in Fall of 2025, he headed up the digital technology and Media M&A strategic advisory practice of a digital consulting firm.

His wife Heather is a pastor in Stanwich Church in Greenwich. He and Heather have three adult children, all of whom attended elementary, middle and high school in Darien. Mark’s interests include hiking, current events and next generation digital/data analytics technology.

Colin Dunne spent most of his childhood just a few miles down I-95 in Rye, N.Y. Immediately upon graduating from Williams College in 1977, he tried out life as a teacher and coach at Saint Andrew’s School, a boarding school in Delaware. However, it did not take long for him to move back north to New York City, where he pursued an M.B.A. at New York University at night while working in economic and financial research during the day. Eventually, he took research, trading and risk management stints at Becker Paribas, J.P. Morgan, Credit Suisse and post-crisis AIG.

While working in New York, Colin moved to Fairfield County, where he ultimately met his wife Meredith. The two married in 1988 and moved to Noroton Bay. In due course, they raised three children — Kevin, Thomas and Julia — moving two more times within town as more bedrooms were needed. Once their nest emptied, Colin and Meredith moved to Rowayton and adopted a now six-year-old Australian cattle dog, Gordon. Since then, they have also welcomed their two-year-old grandson Walter.

Colin is a racquets member at Wee Burn Country Club and plays on its 60+ Fairfield County Tennis Team in the summer. On many summer evenings, Colin and Meredith can be found picnicking on their powerboat or sneaking in nine holes at the Silvermine Golf Course. They also own a condominium in Vermont, which is the family rendezvous point for skiing in the winter and golf in the summer.

Gil Kernan is an executive and entrepreneur with a track record of building and leading financially disciplined, growth-oriented organizations. He brings deep experience in governance, risk management and strategic execution across corporate, nonprofit and family enterprises.

A four-time elected treasurer of Rowayton, Gil is responsible for financial oversight, governance, and internal controls for the town. He was part of the core leadership team that scaled SoundView Technology Group from $4 million to $200 million in revenue, holding P&L responsibility while overseeing compliance, risk management and key institutional relationships. Today, Gil works with and advises organizations on strengthening their financial structure, governance and operational efficiency.

Gil and his wife Kim, who co-owned the House of Needlepoint store in Darien for 15 years, lived in Darien from 1992 to 2010 and now live in Rowayton. Their son Peter lives in Hood River, Oreg., with his wife and two young children. Their daughter Avery lives in Seattle, Wash. Gil coached Peter’s Little League baseball team and hockey team and coached Avery’s basketball team. Gil was a longtime member of the Darien Boat Club. Even after moving from Darien, Gil has been a volunteer for the Darien Land Trust, chainsaw in hand to help with cleanups after storms.

Jim Sullivan and his wife Michelle have lived in Darien for 35 years. They raised three sons, all of whom attended Darien public schools. Two of their sons are married and Jim and Michelle have two grandchildren, with another due in August. Their third son is single and lives in Palo Alto, Calif.

Jim coached numerous town baseball and basketball teams while his boys were in school. He and his family have been active parishioners at St Thomas More Parish, where he served for many years on the Parish Finance Council and as its chair for his last three years on the Council. He was a member of the church building committee during a two-year total renovation and expansion and assisted in budgeting, fundraising and oversight for the project. In addition, Jim served on earlier building committees overseeing the renovation of the parish school building and multipurpose building. Jim was active in the parish youth group, working on several Appalachia home building projects, where funds were raised and high school students and parents would travel to Appalachia to build homes for needy families. He continues to volunteer at the New Covenant House in Stamford with meal preparation for the needy.

Jim graduated from Fairfield University with a degree in finance. His career began in 1980 at NBC News at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan. Jim’s career continued at a variety of media companies, culminating at a private equity firm, Triumph Holdings, LLC, where the team acquired, operated and sold media companies. Jim is an avid golfer and skier, enjoys running and working out and is a novice woodworker.