Category: Members (Page 10 of 28)

My wife, Laura, and I moved to Rowayton a little over two and a half years ago from Healdsburg, California. We left Healdsburg, located in the Sonoma Country wine country, because the fires they were having there were beginning to look like annual events. We moved here to be closer to our only grandchild, grandson Sam, and his mother, Alison, who live in Chappaqua, NY.  We have another daughter, Amy, who will soon be moving back to the States from Belgium with her husband, A J, who is retiring from the Air Force as an intelligence officer who was on loan to NATO.

I was born in Oakland, California in 1941 but  grew up on a 12 acre property near Walnut Creek, CA on which we had 250 walnut trees. I graduated from the University of the Pacific, located in Stockton, CA in 1962 with a degree in international relations. It is at Pacific where I met Laura, my wonderful wife of 60 years.

After receiving my MBA from the University of California, Berkeley in 1967 we moved to Chicago where I began my career in venture capital at The First National Bank of Chicago. We moved back to California in 1972  when I joined Bank of America’s venture capital subsidiary. From there I became a partner at WestVen which was co-founded by Weiss, Peck& Greer and BankAmerica Corporation. I joined Hambrecht & Quist in 1981 where I and three partners ran its venture capital operation. In 1985, one of my H&Q partners, Grant Inman, and I co- founded Inman & Bowman which we successfully ran until 1998. After retiring, I made a number of private investments and participated in a number of volunteer activities including the Board of Regents at the University of the Pacific and board member of the Healdsburg Education Foundation.

Over the years, I have enjoyed golf in many places around the world, but I don’t play much any more. Being an avid golfer and a good golfer are two separate things, and I would describe my golf game as “30 years of beginning golf.” My wife and I started taking bridge lessons at the DCA shortly after moving here and are enjoying bridge very much. However, it is beginning to have that feeling of ” 30 years of beginning bridge.” We also enjoy travel, and reading is another of our common interests .
 

Ed Kweskin was born and raised in Stamford. He graduated from the University of  Pennsylvania in 1968 with a B.A. and then earned a Juris Doctor degree from George  Washington University Law School. After practicing law two years with Community Legal  Services, Inc., in Philadelphia, Ed and his wife Helen moved to Rowayton. He began practicing  law in Stamford with Wofsey, Rosen, Kweskin & Kuriansky, and there he has remained as a  partner for over 50 years. Ed is a past president of the Stamford-Darien Bar Association. In 2016,  Connecticut Legal Services and the Connecticut Bar Association honored him with their Pro  Bono Awards.  

Ed served seventeen years as a Commissioner in Rowayton, including ten years as  Commission Chairman. Additionally, Ed is a past president of the Bell Island Improvement  Association, Temple Sinai in Stamford, and the University of Pennsylvania Alumni Club of  Fairfield County. He is currently a member of the Silvermine Golf Club and the Rowayton Yacht  Club.  

Ed and Helen have lived on Bell Island since 1977. They have two children who grew up  in Rowayton. Ed and Helen enjoy traveling, especially to see their three young grandchildren  who live in Geneva, Switzerland. Their three other grandchildren live in nearby Armonk, NY.

William Looney

William (Bill) was born in late December 1953 in the North Country of Vermont – it goes without saying he is very familiar with the last light of day.  An early memory was watching his father build by hand a lake cottage in the Sandwich area of New Hampshire – a place that remained in his family for more than 60 years and inspired some epic father/son bonding trips into fields, streams, bogs and mountains where the destination was not always clear. 

After this early education in the woods, Bill went to school at Connecticut College, where he spent semesters at the London School of Economics but mostly traveled to wild places in Cornwall and Wales. He moved back to New York as a graduate student at the Columbia University School of International Affairs, receiving an advanced degree in 1979.  His working years began shortly after that, as an analyst and writer for the Economist Intelligence Unit, where he was assigned to cover the Canadian market and spent many long winter weeks in Ottawa reporting on Quebec separatism and the country’s dalliance with economic nationalism. Later, he was among the first to uncover the rise of the global consumer movement after the Union Carbide chemical disaster in India, work that gave him the tag line “Bhopal Bill.”     

That led in turn to a long stint in the pharmaceutical industry where he handled public affairs and policy issues in the UK, Japan and other non-US markets for Warner-Lambert and later Pfizer, trying as well to keep the CEOs happy at the Davos World Economic Forum and other ego-embellishing events.   After that came roles as editor of two pharma trade publications, for which he received awards for excellence in editorial commentary.   Currently, Bill contributes part-time to content and event management for a French company, the Galien Foundation, co-founded by the late author and holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel to promote medicines innovation as an instrument for global growth, development and peace.  He also works with DMA Secretary Mike Wheeler as an English tutor for new immigrants, in a program run by Family Centers of Greenwich/Stamford.   

Bill now lives in Darien with his wife Andrea, who he met early at his first job, being told by the boss to offer his seat (reluctantly) to her, as the fresh new face from the Economist’s Washington office.  Forty years later, Bill still has that bentwood office chair, now at home — and continues the (now not so easy) practice of offering his spare seat to a stranger – because you never know what good can happen when you do. 

I was born in Elmhurst, IL in 1956 and grew up in Los Angeles and Seward, NE. In 2022, after 41 years in Houston, my wife Kathy and I retired and moved to Darien to be near our daughter, Sarah, her husband, and our two granddaughters.

I have a B.S. in Life Sciences from the University of Nebraska and a Master’s of Urban Planning from Texas A&M University. I began my career with the City of Houston Planning and Development Department and later moved on to the Houston Galveston Area Council, where I was Director of Community and Environmental Planning for 35 years. I am a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners and served as a Site Visitor for the Planning Accreditation Board which reviews and accredits collegiate urban planning degree programs. I am also currently serving on the Town of Darien’s Great Island Advisory Committee. I enjoy playing guitar and basketball.

Lou Rawden grew up in Cheshire, Conn.  He graduated with a B.S. degree from Bryant University in 1978 and an MS degree from the University of Hartford in 1980.  Lou started his career as a CPA with Deloitte and Touche in Stamford, Conn and over the years transitioned to banking .  In March of 2022 Lou retired from Apple Bank in New York City after a 30 year career  where he last served as Chief Financial Officer.  

Lou lives in Darien with his wife Kathy.   They moved to Darien in 1985.  Their two children Katie and Lou Jr. were educated in the public school system.   Lou was active with Darien Little League serving as a coach, commissioner and in the initial fund raising for the McGuane baseball fields and over the years has held several Board positions at the Middlesex Club.     Lou and Kathy are long time members of the Middlesex Club and enjoy racquet sports, biking, hiking and golf.

Rick Bullitt has a wife (Georgia), two children (Stockton and Ellie), and two grandchildren (Emmy and Beau — endless pictures available on request). He was born in Philadelphia in 1956 and attended Yale, then to the University of Virginia for a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering and a law degree from Cal. He spent thirty years as a patent attorney in various law firms and corporations and retired from Bayer Healthcare. In the summer of 1976, he worked at Disney World driving a steam locomotive. Rick plays squash and tennis with an equal lack of skill.

I was born in 1953 in Massachusetts.  My family lived in Carlisle and I spent summers with my grandparents in Marion. In 1972, I graduated from St. Mark’s School and made a beeline to Colorado to go to college and ski.  I received my BS in Finance in 1976 and my MBA in 1977, both from the University of Denver. 

I was a commercial banker for 44 years.  My first job, starting in 1977, was in Los Angeles with Crocker National Bank.  I then joined First Chicago in 1983 and spent the next 20 years working for them in Los Angeles, Chicago, and NY.  For the last 16 years, until retirement in 2022, I worked for Helaba (Landesbank Hessen) in NY.  Since 1992, I focused on serving the needs of clients in the insurance industry in the US, Canada, and Bermuda.

In 1980, my wife Joanna and I were married in San Diego.  Our two kids were born in the next few years in Long Beach.  Leaving Los Angeles in 1988, we lived in Chicago for 3 ½ years before a transfer to New York in 1991 brought us to Darien.  We are long time members of St Luke’s Parish and Noroton Yacht Club.  Our daughter, son-in-law, and three grandchildren live in Darien and our son lives in Brooklyn.  I’ve enjoyed volunteering in the communities where we’ve lived.  Among my interests are gardening and landscaping, being on the water, skiing, and traveling, with the most frequent destination being St. Croix where my wife was raised.

Ueli Morant was born (1950), educated and raised in Switzerland and moved to the US in his early twenties and he became a proud US Citizen in 1984. 

He began his career in NYC as an advertising executive serving global brands and moved to the client side later to become a marketing expert. He worked for both IBM in Europe and Philips Electronics worldwide where his responsibilities included marketing, communications and product development. In these roles he also became an expat for seven years, living with his family in both Paris and Amsterdam before returning home to Darien.

Ueli also co-founded Nano Terra, a nano technology development company in Boston, in partnership with Harvard University. The firm employed its own scientists who were deployed on projects for major US companies, when that technology was still in its infancy.

Ueli spent his last ten professional years as head of an M&A firm representing German automotive parts companies to establish and expand their US presence.

Ueli retired in 2023 and now focuses on woodworking, where he designs and builds mostly chairs and tables. He and his former wife Mary Morant have three grown children and three grand-children.

Gordon was raised in Darien and attended the Darien public schools graduating in 1975.  He went on to Washington and Lee University earning a degree in economics which he took with him upon graduation to Sun Valley, Idaho to secure bartending and dishwashing jobs as a ski bum.  Reality set in and Gordon commenced a 40-year career in finance in New York City.  During his career he worked for a number of major international banks and several boutiques focused on advising and arranging trade and project finance in the developing world.  He worked across many different industries as well as different geographies which resulted in an interesting and dynamic career for him.  The business took him to roughly 40 different countries around the world, though not as glamorous as it might sound.  The markets he was active in were developing economies i.e. those where you didn’t drink the water.  Gordon retired in 2022.

Gordon married a Darien classmate, Holly Orr in 1987 and moved from New York to Rowayton for 5 years prior to migrating across Five Mile River to Darien.  They raised two children in Darien and enjoy racquet sports, golf, skiing and hiking.  They are long time members of The Tokeneke Club, and more recently picking up golf, Silvermine Golf Club.  Gordon and Holly are ADK-46ers, having climbed all 46 peaks in the Adirondacks exceeding 4000 feet.