Category: Members (Page 11 of 28)

Duncan Rowland was raised in Rowayton in the 40’s and 50’s. Swimming and sailing were his major sports activities and he also played the cello in various venues around the area including The Connecticut State Orchestra his junior and senior years in High School.  He was graduated from Bethany College where he started the college swim team and was Co-Captain all 4 years.  His business career began at the Hanover Bank, NYC at which time he also earned an MBA from NYU at night.  After a few years in commercial banking, Duncan moved to the Investment side of the business as an institutional Equity salesman.  He worked for Loeb Rhoades, Lehman Brothers, Prudential Bache, Brown Brothers and Alex. Brown & Sons until 2007.  He was posted for various periods in NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, and finally Greenwich. Currently he owns and manages Rowayton Investment Advisors which focuses on covered-call stock investing.

After college he married his college sweetheart and they had 2 children.  She passed away suddenly at age 41 of a brain aneurism; this happened shortly after the family moved to San Francisco because Duncan was hired to run the West Coast Institutional Equity operation of Lehman Brothers. The firm was absorbed by Shearson and Duncan moved back East to Darien. Here he met and married Kathie Gordon Ackerman.  They have been married for 36 years and together have 5 children , 10 Grandchildren and a Great Granddaughter due next February.  They have lived in Darien and Rowayton.   Duncan is a member of Wee Burn where he played golf for many years

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.

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.

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.    

Bob Callahan was born and raised in Greenwich CT, where he graduated from St. Mary High School in 1963.  He earned a BA in Economics from Fairfield University in 1967, and an MBA from Columbia University in 1969.  He served in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1968-1974, with active duty at Ft Bliss, Texas.  He started his business career as a financial analyst at the IBM manufacturing facility in Endicott NY, from 1969-1972.  In 1973, he joined the newly formed Xerox Latin American Group, with increasing responsibilities in Marketing direction and Operations Support to the affiliate management in each country, including South America, Central America and the Caribbean.  Following his retirement in 2006, he started a second career as a Real Estate agent in the local area.  This has proven to be a rewarding transition, finding success over the past 18 years helping and negotiating for both buyers and sellers of homes and properties.  Bob and his wife Sharon have been together since high school, moved to Darien in October of 1978, and have three sons and five grandchildren, all of whom live in Darien.  Member of the Darien Boat Club, with a 21’ center console the whole family shares and enjoys out on the Sound.

Sponsor: John Bartlett

Sponsor: Harry Bergen

Jim was raised in Dobbs Ferry, New York where he graduated from high school, and went on to attend Franklin & Marshall College and New York Law School. Jim’s first job after law school was an Assistant District Attorney in the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office. After a few years, Jim then joined the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington DC, where he met and married his wife Dee. After a successful career in sales and management at IBM, Dee retired as a Director of Strategy.

After leaving the SEC, Jim worked as in-house counsel for Paine Webber and later Morgan Stanley, where he switched careers from law to finance and worked in Morgan Stanley’s Equity Derivatives Group. Jim continued his career in finance working in equity sales for several European investment banks, including BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, Oddo BHF and Kepler Chevtreux where he retired in 2018.

Since his retirement, Jim has mostly worked for non-profit organizations such as the Arthritis Foundation and the PAWS Animal Shelter in Norwalk, although he occasionally does some investor relations consulting work and serves as an arbitrator for FINRA.

Jim has two daughters, Lindsey who married a Darien resident, Scott Scholtz, and Christine who is engaged to Alex Ryan from San Anselmo, California. Lindsey and Scott live in San Francisco, and Christine and Alex live in Manhattan Beach, California.

John McIntire left the island of Cuba as a child and came to the United States. He graduated from Princeton University in 1979 with an A.B. in economics. Thereafter, John had a 25-year career as an international investment banker in New York and London. He retired in 2004 as a partner of Goldman, Sachs & Co, where he spent 12 years focused on Latin America, including being Goldman’s CEO for that region.

Since then, John has been an active investor in and advisor to early stage companies, primarily in Latin America. In addition, he co-founded and serves as chairman of the Cuba Emprende Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization that sponsors the largest entrepreneur training program on the island. Since 2012, the Foundation has supported programs which have graduated 8,000+ entrepreneurs and supported 6,000+ small businesses. John travelled in Cuba over 20 times between 2004-16, and was a member of the official U.S. delegations that visited the island in August of 2015 and March of 2016.

John is a member of the executive committee of the policy-oriented Cuba Study Group and chair of the Cuba Working Group of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. John and his family have lived in Darien since 1991.

Kevin was born and raised in Indiana.  He grew up on a small family dairy farm and his parents kind of wanted him to take over the reins, but they balanced that desire with strong encouragement to go where he wanted or needed to go.   That “where” started at Indiana University (’83), took him to a Ph.D. program at the University of Rochester, where he met his delightful wife of almost 36 years (she was his T.A. in Mathematical Modeling), and eventually to Yale Law School (’91) and a career as a New York tax attorney.  Muddy shoe to white shoe, and he would say he was happy, and lucky, for every bit of it.

Kevin and Madeleine’s son was born three weeks after Kevin graduated from YLS, so he studied for the New York Bar exam with an infant on his lap much of the time, moments he cherishes, but may have contributed to their son becoming a lawyer too.  Why their youngest is also a lawyer, but the middle child earned her Ph.D. and became a consultant, is less easily explained.  Kevin commuted to New York for many years and became a tax partner at Kirkland & Ellis, where he practiced until retiring in 2016.  He enjoyed the puzzles presented by tax law, where he specialized in private equity investments, but doesn’t miss the commute at all.  Nor does he miss the difficult balance of providing client service and trying, mostly successfully, to not miss any band concerts, dance performances or swim meets.  (There were many “3:00 meeting out of the office” entries on his calendar, but late, late, late nights afterwards, involved.)  He now finds ample time to volunteer, ride his bicycle, play paddle, ski at their Vermont home and learn to play pickleball and bridge.

Kevin and Madeleine have lived in Darien since 1993, having moved from Norwalk very shortly after their second child was born.  They have three children, all of whom benefitted from attending Holmes, Ox Ridge after their first move within Darien, Middlesex and DHS.  The kids are now married or engaged, and Kevin and Madeleine couldn’t be happier to have the in-laws they have.   Having strongly entertained the notion of down-sizing and moving to Stamford or Rowayton, COVID living arrangements with their kids who were fleeing or relocating from various urban areas made them glad they have space for all, when needed, in the lovely town of Darien.  Their children are currently located in New York and the Boston area, so Kevin and Madeleine are unlikely to leave Fairfield County any time soon.  Kevin looks forward to getting to know more of his fellow townsmen than he ever could have done while standing on the Noroton Heights platform, waiting for the “lawyers, advertisers, and sometimes ladies who lunch” train (i.e., not the 5:45) every morning.