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.

Sponsored by Jim Phillips

Joe Roxe grew up on Long Island.  He graduated from Chaminade and Princeton University before enlisting in the Navy in January 1959.  After three and a half years as a gunnery and anti-submarine officer aboard a destroyer based in Newport, RI, he left the Navy, received an MBA from Harvard Business School, and joined Mobil Oil in New York.  He spent 23 years with the company in a variety of management roles in London and New York before leaving Mobil to become a partner at Johnson & Higgins, the world’s largest private insurance broker.  He left J&H in 1997 after helping to negotiate the sale of the firm to Marsh & McLennan.  He continues to be active as Chairman of Bay Holdings, a private investment holding company and The Roxe Foundation.  Joe has been happily married to Maureen since 1965.  They have three children and eight grandchildren living in Boston, Baltimore and Connecticut.

He has served as Chairman of the U.S. Navy War College Foundation and as a board member of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and as a Dean’s Council at the Harvard Kennedy School of Public Policy. He is a past President of Wee Burn Country Club.  Governor Jodi Rell appointed him Chairman of the State of Connecticut Investment Advisory Council in Hartford to oversee the $26 billion of investments in the State Teachers and Employees’ pension plan.

Joe is a Knight of Malta and a Papal Knight in the order of St. Silvester. 

Scott Reardon was raised in South Dakota. In college he ran Georgetown Free University, Co-Chaired GU’s International Association of Students in Economics and Commercial Sciences and was elected the first student on Georgetown College’s governing council.  After receiving a Masters degree in Business he joined Dakon-Dakota Iron, his family’s firm, wholesaling to 5,000 Midwest retailers.  Later he became its president.

In 1980 he launched the first of twenty self-funded startups, initially in broadcasting, as an owner and operator. In 1987, Scott began to buy, build and operate cellular telephone systems.  Moore’s Law, doubling microchip capacity every 18 months, implied that mobile phones would become universal. Later he launched a national wireless network offering vital last-mile broadband services to Fortune 1000 and small and medium businesses. Scott’s current primary focus is on business-to-business cloud-based software startups.

Scott and his wife, Rosemarie, moved to Darien in the early 1990s, raised four great kids and currently spoil three grandchildren. His interests include art, especially modern, history, public affairs, poverty alleviation and economics. His service to nonprofits include multiple terms on Georgetown University’s Board of Regents and twenty years as Chairman of the Deutsche Bank Microcredit Development Fund.

Sponsored by Jim Tulacro & Gary Banks

John P. (Jack) Dearie, Jr. was born in Mt. Lakes, N.J. in 1950 and is a graduate of Georgetown University (1972) and Fordham Law School (1978). While at GU, he was active in the Mask & Bauble Drama Society and was also the leader (Ephus) of the Georgetown Chimes. He has served on the Board of the GU Metropolitan Alumni Club and is a frequent attendee at GU basketball games and related alumni events.

Jack retired in May 2020 after a 42-year legal career as a corporate regulatory lawyer in private practice, most recently as a partner with the Locke Lord, LLP law firm. He is a member of the NY and CT bars.

Jack and his wife, Patrice, have lived in the same house on Birch Road in Darien since 1980. They have two daughters, Farrell and Kelly, who went through the Darien School system and were both collegiate swimmers, now living in New York City and Sudbury, Mass., respectively. They also have two grandchildren, Isabel and James.

Jack and Patrice are active members of St. Thomas More Church. They are also members of the Darien Boat Club and members for 35 years of the Middlesex Club, where Jack has served on the board and currently plays on the paddle and tennis teams. His other interests include kayaking, boating, theater, hiking, reading, travel, all NY sports teams, and his current passion, pickleball.

Lincoln Schoff was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania in 1950 and grew up in Philadelphia. He graduated from Germantown Academy in Philadelphia in 1968, and from Amherst College in 1972 with a B.A. in political science. At Amherst, he played football and was an active member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity. In 1977, Linc graduated from Wharton with an MBA and started a corporate banking career in Boston with The First National Bank of Boston, where he worked for 10 years before being transferred to Stamford, CT and buying his current home in Darien in 1987. Linc continued his banking career thru the industry’s various mergers, concluding a 13 year stint with Bank of America with his retirement in April 2020.

Linc and his wife of 41 years Meredith have three children that went thru the Darien school system from start to finish, all of whom live and work in the metro NY area, plus three grandchildren living in Rowayton, CT. Linc is a past member of the Middlesex Club and the Silvermine Golf Club and a past elder of Noroton Presbyterian Church. He enjoys golf, tennis, bicycling, travel and spending time with his family.

Sponsored by Ed Sweeney

Charles Hurty was born in 1943 in Wichita, Kans., and attended Southeast High School there. In 1965 he graduated from Kansas University with highest distinction with a BA degree. He belonged to SAE fraternity and participated in intramural sports. After graduation he worked about a year as Eastman Kodak in Rochester, N.Y. before answering the call of Uncle Sam. He joined the army as a 2nd Lt in artillery. After serving in Korea, he was discharged in 1968 and joined KPMG in its Dallas office. He transferred to New York City in 1979 and in 1985 was assigned to South Florida where he established an office at West Palm Beach and was made a partner in KPMP Audit Practice in South Florida. He was transferred back to New York City in 1993 and retired in 2001. Since that time, he has served on the board of directors of four different mutual fund complexes and hedge funds and assisted in the establishment and operation of a doggy daycare business, Bandilane Canine Center, in Stamford, CT.

Charles and his wife Jeanne live in Darien and have four sons and eight grandchildren. He belongs to the Darien Boat Club, Tokeneke Country Club, Wee Burn Country Club, Saint Luke’s Church, the Greenwich Kennel Club and the PBGV Club of America. For hobbies, Charles enjoys golf, fishing (catching) with grandkids, guitar and piano, and showing dogs —  which he has done for the past 20 years.

Sponsored by Brian Hooper 

Albert Briganti was born in 1946 in Port Chester, N.Y. and grew up in the Westchester County area. He graduated in 1964 from Stepinac High School in White Plains. In 1968 he received a BA in Philosophy from Saint Joseph’s Seminary and, in 1971, a Masters degree from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism where he has also served as an adjunct professor. He retired in 2016 after a 40 year career with CBS News where he covered events in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the near reactor melt down at Three Mile Island, and several presidential campaigns. He was part of the team that created the long running program 48 HOURS, where he was Executive Editor. He remains active as a documentary film maker.

Al and his wife Karen live in Darien. They have grown twin sons and one grandchild. He belongs to the Tokeneke Club and Saint Luke’s Church and frequently travels to Cuba for the work the church does there. In his free time, he likes to engage in gardening, tennis, learning Spanish and doing the daily NY Times crossword puzzle.

Sponsored by John Bassler

Michael Harte was born and grew up in County Leitrim, Ireland, and emigrated to the USA in 1963. He lived in the Bronx, N.Y. while attending Roosevelt High School and Lehman Collage. He served in the NY National Guard from 1964 thru 1970 while simultaneously working for Consolidated Edison Co. where he continued working until 2012 in their Construction Management on various power projects within the service area.
Michael and his wife Eileen moved to Darien in 1979. They have two sons and five grandchildren. He belongs to the Irish American Club in Fairfield and in his leisure time he enjoys travel, reading history, beekeeping and handiwork. He is a volunteer at the wood shop at the Darien Senior Center and with the Boy Scouts.

Sponsored by Thomas Williams

Richard Kelsey was born in 1941 in Joliet, Ill., and grew up in Joliet and Osage, Iowa. He graduated from Osage Community High School. Dick was awarded a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Marquette University in 1964 and an MBA from the University of Denver in 1973.

On graduating from Marquette, Dick joined the Peace Corp in Ecuador as a construction engineer until 1967. Returning stateside, he joined Allis-Chalmers in Milwaukee, Wis. as an Industrial equipment application engineer. He joined American Appraisal Co. in 1967 as a machinery appraiser where he remained until 2008 in their New York office as Area Manager, Executive Officer & Stockholder. From 2010 until the present he has been President of Paragon Business Valuation Services.

Dick has lived in Darien with his wife Beverly Fisk since 1987 and they have one son. He has been a SCORE mentor since 2009, belongs to the Darien Chamber of Commerce (Board Chairman 2012) and enjoys golf.

Sponsored by Gary Banks

A member of DMA and a Darien resident for 35 years, David Fitzpatrick is currently a Staff Writer for CNN’s flagship prime time newscast,  “Anderson Cooper 360.”   Fitzpatrick has been at CNN as an anchor producer, senior executive producer and investigative producer since 2001, with the exception of a year sabbatical in 2017.

Prior to joining CNN, he spent 25 years at CBS News in a variety of editorial positions, including service as a producer in the network’s Washington, Los Angeles and London Bureaus.  He has also served as the network’s Bureau Chief in Chicago and later, National Editor.   He joined the CBS Evening News as a producer in the late 1980s and subsequently joined “60 Minutes” as a producer attached to the late Morley Safer.   He also was a producer for two other CBS News newsmagazines, “Eye to Eye With Connie Chung” and “Public Eye With Bryant Gumbel.”  Upon leaving CBS News in 1998, he joined the staff of the ABC News prime time newsmagazine “20/20.”

During his career, he has worked for CBS News, ABC News and CNN on assignment across the world, including time in Iran during the hostage crisis, in Poland during the Solidarity uprising, throughout the Middle East, Africa, Central and South America.   He’s also been assigned to work in New Orleans during the Katrina disaster, in Indonesia for the devastating tsunamis of 2004/05 and in Malaysia for the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

He and his wife Adria Bates have three adult children, now scattered throughout the United States.