Category: Members (Page 2 of 27)

After 20 years in Darien — where two of his four children came up through the public schools — Steve Yavner recently made the short move to Norwalk, staying deeply rooted in the community he loves. He remains an active member of both the Darien Chamber of Commerce, the Darien Community Association and the Darien YMCA.

Steve is the founder of Spark Your College Story, Inc., where he is a college advisor, essay coach and SAT/ACT tutor, helping students find and tell the stories that get them into college. Three afternoons a week, you’ll find him at the Boys and Girls Club of Greenwich, working one-on-one with middle and high school students across a wide range of subjects — because he believes every student deserves a great mentor.

Before launching Spark Your College Story, Steve built a remarkable career in media and education. He spent nine years as a sports anchor and reporter in West Palm Beach and at CNN in Atlanta, ran the CBS newsroom in Miami for eight years and was an executive producer in Boston and Philadelphia. He later brought that real-world experience into the classroom, teaching journalism and communications for 12 years at the University of Miami, Fairfield University, and Central Connecticut State University.

Steve and his wife Phyllis — a psychotherapist with a private practice in Darien — are the proud parents of Christopher, Emily, Caroline and Evan, and grandparents to grandson Jack. A native of Brookline, Mass., Steve spends his downtime on the golf course or out on the water on board his boat, Phyllisity.

Thomas (Tom) MacDonald was born and raised in Wisconsin. He obtained his undergraduate degree (B.S. in economics and mathematics) and law degree from the University of Wisconsin. Following his graduation from law school in 1981, Tom practiced corporate and securities law in Minneapolis for eight years and served on the board of directors of Golden American Life Insurance Company, an issuer of mutual fund-backed variable annuities. In 1989, Tom joined Seward & Kissel, a mid-sized law firm in New York City. He represented hedge funds, mutual funds and other clients in the money management industry. For health reasons, Tom retired from the firm and from the practice of law in 2002, although he continued to consult for the firm and former clients for some time after that.

After joining Seward & Kissel, Tom moved from Minnesota to Darien with his wife Debra and their two children, Kimberly and David, then ages 5 and 1, respectively. In 2017, Tom and Deb moved from Darien to a condominium in downtown Stamford. While in Darien, Tom was active in coaching youth basketball and football. He spent 10 years on the board of directors of the Darien Junior Football League. He helped to found the Fairfield County Football League and served on its board of directors. Tom also volunteered for At Home in Darien. He and his family were long-time members of the Middlesex Club and St. Thomas More Parish. Tom had been an active squash player, runner, cyclist and downhill skier but now enjoys more sedate activities such as reading and spending time with Deb and their two grandchildren. With Deb having recently retired from Stamford Hospital, Tom and Deb now plan to spend time traveling.

Peter Riordan moved with his family to Darien in 2008 after growing up in Stamford and living in the Washington, D.C. area for 14 years. He has been deeply involved in the Darien community, having served as a Scout leader (cubmaster, assistant scoutmaster and district chairman), and he has served the town of Darien as a member of the RTM. He is currently serving on the Advisory Commission on Coastal Waters and the DarienTV Advisory Board. Peter is an active member and elder of Noroton Presbyterian Church and has served that church in several roles.

Peter has worked in the broadcast industry for 40 years and has worked for a number of companies, including Connecticut Public Television, HBO, Discovery and Amazon Web Services (Media & Entertainment business unit). Many of his professional roles have been focused on operations, technology strategy and change management.

Peter and his wife Kalie have been married for 30 years. Kalie grew up in Darien and attended Holmes and Middlesex schools before attending King Low Heywood school. Kalie is the director of Noroton Presbyterian Nursery School and the Noroton Presbyterian Child Care Program. Their adult children Gillian and Luke were both born in Silver Spring, Md., and attended Holmes and Middlesex schools and Darien High School. Gillian is a volunteer and past officer at Noroton Heights Fire Department. Luke served at Post 53 through high school and college and is looking forward to post-collegiate participation in the program.

William (Bill) Waters was born and raised in Glen Ridge, N.J., attended North Carolina State University and graduated with a double major in accounting and business administration. Bill is a CPA and retired partner of Berdon LLP in New York City, specializing in commercial real estate.

He and his wife Ginny, a former professor of Japanese studies, have one daughter, Jessica, and a six-year-old grandson.

Bill and Ginny seem to have made a hobby of moving from house to house in the New York metropolitan area — from New Jersey to several homes in Rye, Manhattan, Greenwich and, since 2020, Rowayton. The Rowayton/Darien/Norwalk location is by far his favorite due to the proximity and easy access to shopping, restaurants, parks, the seaside, and Silvermine Golf Club, where he loves to meet up with people and enjoy a round of golf.

Robert (Buddy) Kretzman and his wife Clare recently moved from North Stamford to Darien. They have been Connecticut residents since the early 1980s, with a brief stint in Chicago for Buddy’s career.

They have been married 43 years, have two adult sons: Matthew, who lives in Darien with his wife and three children aged nine, eight and four; and Christopher, who lives in New Canaan with his wife and daughter Bryce, age three. Buddy is blessed to spend much of his time with family, enjoying their activities, watching Darien junior football, travel soccer, town basketball, baseball and cheerleading. Buddy and Clare have a small house on Long Island, in which they spend much of their summer. Buddy and Clare walked the Camino de Santiago, hiked in the national parks in Utah and Colorado and made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, thankfully before the recent hostilities.

Prior to Buddy’s retirement in 2013, he served as the chief legal and administrative officer of Revlon, with responsibility for global legal, human resources, compliance, security, real estate and facilities and licensing areas. After retirement, he served on Revlon’s board of directors. He graduated from St. John’s University in 1974 and from St. John’s University School of Law in 1977.

After retiring, Buddy took numerous courses at Fairfield University, focusing primarily on religious studies across numerous faith traditions. He is a certified spiritual director and supervisor serving at the Murphy Center for Ignatian Spirituality at Fairfield University and chairs the Murphy Center’s advisory board.

He also serves on the board of directors of Food Rescue US, a non-profit organization that secures fresh food from restaurants and food stores and uses unique software applications to efficiently distribute it to food banks and homeless shelters nationally. Its dual mission is to address food insecurity and mitigate the environmental impact of food waste.

Windsor Hall spent his career in corporate banking and credit risk management. He obtained his B.A. in economics and philosophy from Brandeis University and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. His wife Elizabeth was a dance and fitness instructor who taught at the Darien Arts Center and the Darien Senior Center.

Windsor and Elizabeth moved from New York City to Darien in 1993. In 1995, they moved with their one-year-old son to Singapore, where Windsor worked for Chemical Bank (now JPMChase). After having two more children in Singapore, they moved in 1998 to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where Windsor was country manager for JPMChase. The family returned to Darien in 2002. Windsor joined Citigroup in 2003, then worked for a privately-owned investment advisor for six years, before working for and retiring from U.S. Bank in 2022.

Windsor has been a trustee and treasurer for the Rowayton United Methodist Church since 2018. He enjoys staying very active and particularly enjoys, and hopes to continue as long as possible, running, hiking and biking. He and Elizabeth also enjoy traveling to new places and keeping up with their children and their large, extended families.

Mark Filanowski was born in Milford, Conn., in 1954, and he was raised there. His mother’s family arrived in Milford 400 years ago, and his father’s parents came from Eastern Europe in the late 1800s to work a farm in Milford that still operates today.

Mark graduated from University of Connecticut’s main campus in Storrs in 1976 and became a certified public accountant, working for Ernst & Young in New Haven. In 1984, he became vice president and controller of Armstrong Tire Co. in New Haven. He obtained an M.B.A. from New York University in 1989 and began a 35-year career in ocean shipping that same year, living in London and New York. His shipping experience includes private ship owner and operator and, most recently, chief executive officer (retired) of Pangaea Logistics Solutions Ltd., a publicly traded dry bulk shipping company with worldwide headquarters in Newport, R.I.

Mark moved to Darien in 1993 with his wife Monica McNally to set up household and raise a family, believing there is no better place than Darien. Mark and Monica led a Boy Scout troop, were Darien Boat Club members and are today active in many Town functions. They are long time members of St. Luke’s Parish and The Tokeneke Club. Their two children, Helen and Stephen, live and work in New York and Rhode Island, respectively. The family enjoys time together at home in Darien, in Bozeman, Mont., and traveling around the world.

Daniel (Dan) Bumgardner and his wife Patti have lived in Darien since moving here from Manhattan in 1999. Their two children Kelsey (29) and Brendan (26) are proud graduates of Darien High School, where they were active in multiple sports and activities. Dan has been a volunteer coach across Darien Little League softball and baseball, youth soccer and Darien Youth Hockey Association hockey. He has volunteered for the Community Fund and has been on the board of The Country Club of Darien since 2022, for which he currently serves as president. Dan was elected to the Town of Darien’s Board of Finance in 2019 and has served as its vice chairman since 2021.

Dan worked in the banking sector for over 35 years, retiring in 2016. He managed key corporate and private equity relationships for certain banks that now constitute JPMorgan and concluded his career in a similar capacity at Wells Fargo. Dan holds a B.S. in finance from Bowling Green State University and an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Dan and Patti enjoy traveling, golf and racquet sports, skiing and attending Rangers hockey games with their kids. He is also a lifelong (and long-suffering) Cleveland sports fan.

Kevin Marks and his wife Susan are proud to have raised their family in Darien and to have called it home for the last 36 years. Born in Evanston, Ill., and raised in Barrington, R.I., Kevin graduated from Plymouth State University in New Hampshire in 1981. He joined Eastman Kodak in New York City and enjoyed a series of progressive sales and sales leadership roles during that period. In 2002, he joined Pitney Bowes as vice president of sales and marketing. He completed his career at BlueCrest, a Pitney Bowes spinoff, as vice president of global production print and strategy. In October 2025, Kevin made the pivot from the workforce and is actively pursuing a new phase of experiences and adventures.

He is and will continue to be an active and committed competitor. A lifelong sailboat racer, he can be found on a racecourse 12 months of the year and at venues across the East Coast, as well as offshore long-distance ocean racing. A long-time member of Noroton Yacht Club, Kevin plays an active coaching role in the club’s Junior Offshore Sailing Training Program. He also leads the annual New Year’s Day Polar Plunge community event.

Additionally, he has caught pickleball fever and regularly competes in tournaments at the local, state, regional and national levels. Add in regional Spartan Race and local 5K running events, Kevin is activating his “go-go” plan with speed, focus and purpose.

Michael (Mike) Vossler was born in Ann Arbor, Mich., and attended grade school in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Denver, Colo., before settling in the small Lake Michigan town of St. Joseph, Mich. He and his wife Heidi moved to Darien in 2001, where they raised their two children, Hanna (now in Brooklyn) and Henry (now in Raleigh, N.C.).

Mike earned a B.A. in international relations from Michigan State University in 1986 and a master’s degree in international management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in 1988. After working in Brussels between undergraduate and graduate school, he launched his professional career in fintech in Frankfurt, Germany. During that time, not only did the Berlin Wall fall, but Mike met his future bride Heidi (originally from Virginia), who was working at the same firm. They later moved to London to begin their married life before returning to the United States. After a year in New York City, they settled in North Stamford, where a neighbor who was a charter member of The Country Club of Darien (CCD) introduced them to the community that ultimately led them to Darien.

Mike is retiring this year after a 40-year career in the fintech industry, including 23 years at SunGard followed by several start-ups and corporate turnarounds. Serving on numerous committees and the board of CCD, he now looks forward to finally improving his golf game. In addition to skiing, hiking and travel, Mike and Heidi are avid boaters and plan to explore the Long Island Sound and beyond over the coming years.

Stan Forkner was born in Newton, Mass, and raised in Greenwich, Conn. He graduated from St. Lawrence University in 1980, earning a degree in political science. His career started in the grain trading and soft commodities shipping businesses, which had Stan working in both San Francisco and New Orleans. The most exciting and life-changing experience came while living in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he scouted out new grain trading business prospects in the South American market for a Germany-based company.

His career took a turn when he was offered an opportunity to return to the New York City area to hold various senior-level sales positions in finance, asset management, and financial technology. During this time, he earned FINRA Series 3, 7, 22 and 63 licenses as well as executive education certificates at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the New York Institute of Finance. Stan has now retired, completing his career at OSTTRA, a leading post-trade technology processing company recently acquired by private equity firm KKR.

Stan and his wife Wendy married in 1985 and in 1989, moved to Darien, where they raised a son and daughter. Their son Brad lives in Darien and works in real estate finance in New York City, while their daughter Dana lives and works in graphic design in Paris, France.

Stan likes boating, fly fishing, tennis, paddle tennis and golf. He is a member of The Country Club of Darien and the Darien Boat Club.

Robert McMullan moved from Dallas to Darien with his wife in 1999. From then until he retired in 2021, he was active in several Darien organizations, including Darien Y Guides and Princesses, Little League (assistant coach for three years), the Darien Foundation for Technology and Community. He was a longtime member of the YMCA and was a member of the Wingmen, an “old guy” rock band that played several times at Darien Summer Nights. After he retired, his wife and he began spending more time in Florida, but they missed Darien and bought a house in Rowayton in 2025 with a plan to spend more time up here.

Robert graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1980 and received an M.B.A. in 1984 from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He started his investment banking career at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette until it was acquired in 2000 and then moved to Credit Suisse. In 2007, he switched careers and joined Blackstone and through 2021, raised money for Blackstone’s private equity and related funds. After 10 months of retirement, he went to work at a new private equity firm in Miami in November 2022. Robert plans to re-retire in the next several months, and this time to make it stick.

Robert has three children: Mollie, 27, and fraternal twins Robert and William, 23. All of them attended Darien schools through middle school. Mollie attended Trinity Catholic High School in Stamford. Robert attended Darien High School, where he played baseball and basketball. William attended Canterbury School in New Milford, Conn., where he played tennis and water polo. Mollie now lives in Nashville, Robert lives in Phoenix, and William lives at home in Rowayton and commutes into Manhattan.