Category: Members (Page 3 of 27)

Robert (Bob) Biggart has lived in Darien since moving here with his family here in 1955 when he was one. Bob graduated from Princeton University and received his law degree from Fordham Law School in 1979.

Bob was a lawyer for over 40 years. He started at Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft, a law firm in New York City, and then in 1984 joined the PepsiCo law department, where he worked for 30 years. In 2013, he became the general counsel of Fortune Brands (a home products company headquartered in Chicago with consumer brands including Moen, Master Lock and Therma-Tru Doors) and retired in 2021.

In 1979, Bob married his wife Lynn, who also grew up in Darien. They are the parents of five daughters, including two sets of twins, all of whom attended Darien public schools. Four of their daughters live near each other in the Chicago area and one daughter is in Seattle. Bob and Lynn also have five grandchildren.

Bob enjoys biking, skiing and playing chess.

John (Jack) Carley grew up in Stamford. He and his wife Maura have lived in Darien since 1985. They have a son and three daughters, all of whom attended Darien public schools, as well as six grandchildren.

Jack holds an undergraduate degree from the College of the Holy Cross and a J.D. degree from the University of Chicago. He worked for 43 years at Con Edison, where he served as in-house counsel representing Con Edison and its affiliates before various state and federal regulatory agencies.

He has been a member of St. Thomas More Church since moving to Darien. His interests include reading, walking and following the fortunes of the New York Yankees and New York Giants.

Jack Brewer moved to Rowayton eight years ago after having lived in North Stamford for 45 years. He graduated from Rutgers University, spent a year working at Bankers Trust Company, attended Columbia Business School and spent the next 55 years building Brewer Yacht Yard Group and finally co-founding Safe Harbors Marinas.

He has been married to his wife Peg for 63 years. They have three children: John, who owns two marinas in South Freeport, Me.; Bill, a real estate attorney in New York City; and Kelly, a homeowner in Rowayton.  Jack and Peg have seven grandchildren, five girls and seven boys, ranging in age from 25 to 14.

Frank DeLuca is originally from Greenwich and now lives in Rowayton with his wife Linda, to whom he has been married for 42 years. He attended Brunswick School in Greenwich and graduated from Skidmore College in 1976 with a degree in early childhood education and psychology. He went on to work in the field of international travel and tourism for a few years, before taking over ownership of his family’s pharmacy and medical supply business in Old Greenwich.

His relationship with Darien began when he met Linda, who was born and raised in town. You could say he was a part-time resident of Darien, spending time and holidays in town with Linda’s extended family. After marrying, Linda and he operated the family business together for over 25 years before retiring. Since then, Frank has done volunteer work with Greenwich and Stamford Hospitals, the Norwalk Family and Children’s Agency and several other organizations. In his ample spare time, he enjoys reading a good book and gardening in his little yard. He owns a 1966 Mustang convertible, and when he is not driving it around town just for fun, he can be found in his garage tinkering with it.

Christopher (Chris) Price has lived in Darien since 1999 with his wife Meg. He is a graduate of Middlebury College and Tulane Law School. He practiced commercial real estate law for 40 years in New York City, the last 20 years at Goodwin Procter before retiring in September 2025.

He is the chair of the Hindley, Holmes, Royle School Building Committee, overseeing the renovation and expansion of those elementary schools. Chris is an avid boater, skier and SCUBA diver, and holds a U.S. Coast Guard Master Captain’s License.

Chris and Meg are members of Saint Luke’s Parish and The Tokeneke Club. They have three adult daughters, Caroline, Jenny and Eliza, and one grandson, James.

Paul Tregurtha was born in 1935 in Orange, N.J. He received a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Cornell University and an M.B.A. from Harvard in 1963. He served as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force from 1958 to 1961 and worked for Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing Company from 1969-1971.

He then started his career in the water transportation field by joining Moore-McCormack Resources, Inc. in Stamford, for which he worked until 1987, eventually rising to CEO and chairman. Since 1988, he has been chairman and co-owner of Mormac Marine Group, Inc. in Stamford and co-owner of The Interlake Steamship Company, Moran Towing Corporation, which operates 95 tugboats in the United States and Mexico, and Seastreak Ferry, LLC, a private ferry company operating in the Port of New York and New Jersey and in New England. Paul describes his current role at these firms as “giving advice and not caring if anyone listens.” He had been co-owner and vice chairman of Interlake Steamship Company in 1990 when its flagship vessel was rechristened the MV Paul R. Tregurtha and is now the longest active vessel operating on the Great Lakes.

Paul served on Cornell’s board of trustees in the 1980s and 1990s and rose to become vice chairman of the board. He continues to serve as trustee emeritus. His wife Lee, now deceased, also graduated from Cornell, as did his four children (one born in each of Oregon, Massachusetts, Michigan and England) and 11 of his 14 grandchildren.

He resides part time in Darien, although his permanent address is in Florida. His hobbies, now limited, are golf, boating, skiing, hiking and rowing, and his interests include keeping up with his expanding family, learning to use AI and Chat GPT and learning to play bridge.

Bruce Failing received a B.A. from Tufts University in 1971. He received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1973, after which Bruce and his father started ActMedia, the first in-store advertising and promotions company in the United States and took it public in 1983. In 1989, ActMedia was sold to Heritage Media, which in turn was sold to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in 1997. ActMedia exists today as News America Marketing.

Bruce was a principal in Lamaze Publishing Company, a for-profit company that licensed the “Lamaze” name to create a series of baby and parenting media vehicles, which was sold to a subsidiary of NBCUniversal in 2006. He was also a principal in the 2000 purchase from GE Capital of Productivity Solutions, a leader in automated self-checkout solutions for retailers, and its turnaround and subsequent sale to IBM in 2003.

In 2004, Bruce was a founding partner of Alerion Partners and continues in that role. Alerion Partners invests in and provides managerial assistance to companies, focusing on start-ups and turnaround situations. He teaches a course on entrepreneurial development in the M.B.A. program of Palm Beach Atlantic University’s Marshall E. Rinker Sr. College of Business.

Bruce is an active sailor and skier. He has five grandchildren who reside in Darien and Greenwich.

A lifelong learner, Ron D’Andrea built a strong educational foundation, having attended Greenwich public schools before earning a bachelor’s degree from the University of Connecticut and a master’s degree from Columbia University.

He began his professional life teaching in the Greenwich public schools, then transitioned to lead two prominent sales skills improvement firms as president. In 2013, Ron co-founded his own venture, Global Performance Group, and currently works with large sales organizations and senior executive teams to help individuals gain the skills, confidence and tools to make better business decisions faster.

Ron moved to Darien in 1989 with his wife Emily, where they raised three children: Kathryn, Rebecca and Matthew. In Darien, he was an RTM representative and a Land Trust Board member, as well as involved in Y Guides and youth sports. Ron recently moved to Norwalk, from where he enjoys being involved in the Darien, Rowayton and Norwalk communities. Beyond his professional life, Ron enjoys boating, paddle tennis, pickleball, a monthly men’s book group and traveling extensively for business and pleasure throughout the United States, Europe and Asia.

Neil Duncan was born in Huddersfield in Yorkshire, England. He grew up in Hemel Hempstead, a suburb of London, and went to Berkhamsted School. In 1980, he went to Nottingham University to study economics. In 1983, he joined Price Waterhouse. In 1987, he qualified as a chartered accountant and moved with Price Waterhouse to New York City.

NeilI joined J.P. Morgan (1989-1999) in the Controller’s Department and in 1993 moved to real estate investment banking. In 2000, he joined MetroNexus (a Morgan Stanley real estate fund company). In 2003, he partnered with Alex Twining to start Twining Properties, which develops high-rise urban apartments from Boston to New York City. He recently retired from Twining Properties but remains an equity owner.

In 1985, his parents bought a house in Darien and since then have split their time between the United States and England. His two brothers live in Westport and Stamford. Neil met his wife Kara (from Chicago) in Barbados in 1985, and after a year she moved to live with him in England. In 1987, Neil and Kara moved to New York City, married in Chicago in 1989 and moved to Darien in 1992. They have four grown children.

Neil loves to travel — he has been to 45 states and 44 countries and aims for 50 of each. His other interests are sports, mainly at The Country Club of Darien (golf, paddle, padel, tennis, biking and skiing), history (including art history) and reading.

Thomas A (Tam) Murray moved to Rowayton from Alexandria, Va., with Lauren, his wife of 43 years, in the spring of 2025.

Tam earned an undergraduate degree in history from Williams College in 1979 and an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business in 1985. Following business school, he worked in Northern Virginia’s commercial real estate market before founding Community Wireless Structures (CWS) in the late 1990s. CWS developed and owned the structures that enable wireless services. CWS’s business was focused geographically in Northern and Central Virginia and strategically on developing the difficult tower sites that caused perennial holes in carrier coverage. He served as the chair of the Wireless Infrastructure Association. Later, in 2022, he sold the majority of CWS’s tower portfolio.

In recent years, Tam has devoted professional time to a handful of business opportunities on the family farm outside of Charlottesville, Va. He and his six brothers have a goal of sustaining the 836-acre farm as open space.

As a newcomer, Tam finds coastal Connecticut to be a good fit for his active lifestyle. On any given morning, you may see Tam in a swim lane at the Darien YMCA, and he participated in the September Ladrigan Swim Races from Green’s Ledge Lighthouse to Bayley Beach. Tam frequently participates in road rides sponsored by the Sound Cyclists Bicycle Club. He enjoys playing nine (and an occasional 18) holes at Oak Hills, Sterling Farms and Longshore golf courses. Daily walks with his Australian shepherd Hank keep him on the trails of many local parks.

Periodically, Tam finds time for multiday biking and backpacking. He biked the Great Allegheny Passage trail in the summer of 2025, and hikes have included portions of the Appalachian Trail, the Colorado Trail and various national park trails in the West. When indoors, he is an avid reader who participates in a remote book group that hatched during the COVID pandemic.

Tam and Lauren have four adult children and two grandchildren. Moving to Rowayton has given Tam and Lauren the opportunity to be closer to family in Brooklyn and Providence, making possible the nearly weekly visits with the grandkids that are one of the great joys in this new chapter in life.

David Upson and his wife Carlyle have lived in Darien for 15 years. He grew up in Cincinnati and graduated from Walnut Hills High School in 1982. He went to Colgate University, where he graduated in 1987 with a degree in economics.

David discovered his passion for investing while at Colgate and was one of the founders of the Investment Club and a member of the fraternity Beta Theta Pi. Following graduation, he moved to New York City, where he started his career in the investment business. He was most recently director of hedge fund research for the family office investment advisory firm CTC | myCFO, a division of BMO Wealth Management.

David has also been involved in the community and his children’s activities. He was a board member from 2011-2015 at Person to Person and coached sports teams for both of his children throughout their childhood. He has been a lifelong enthusiast of tennis, squash and golf. In 2019, he became a founding member of the Ox Ridge Riding & Racquet Club (Ox Ridge) and is currently a member of its board. He continues to be an enthusiastic racquet sports player and plays singles and doubles squash at Ox Ridge and plays on the Wee Burn Country Club tennis and paddle teams. His favorite sport is golf, and he is a member of three golf societies: Junior Senior Golfing Society of Connecticut; Friars Golf Club; and Thousand Greens.

David and Carlyle like to socialize with family and friends, travel and experience new things together. They have two children and a 10-year-old terrier named Pepper. Their oldest child Stewart (18) is a senior at Greens Farms Academy, and Daphne (16) is in 10th grade at Cheshire Academy. Carlyle has been a professional artist since 2001 and is represented at Ceres Gallery in New York City, with a focus on landscapes and abstracts in oil and acrylic.

Donn Smith was raised in Hamden, Conn., and graduated from Yale University Phi Beta Kappa in 1967 with a B.A. in English.  His professional career was spent in publishing.  Following management positions at Time Inc., Newsweek, and Harvard Business Review, he joined a Greenwich-based multi-title newsletter publisher.  In 2001 he formed his own consulting business providing copy and creative services to a number of leading magazine and book publishers.

He has been a Darien resident for the past thirty-three years.  He served two terms on the Darien RTM and has volunteered at P2P and St. John Church. Current volunteer activities include serving as Archivist for The Mather Homestead Foundation and Genealogist for the Society of the Descendants of the Founders of Hartford.

Donn is married to Mary Ellen Quirk, who grew up in Darien and whom he was lucky enough to meet in New York City in 1978.   They have one daughter, Sarah, who followed her mother’s path through Darien schools, and her father’s through Yale and subsequently received her J.D. from Michigan Law.

He is a member of the Roger Sherman Branch of the SAR, St. John Church, the Darien YMCA, the Tokeneke Club, and the Yale Club of New York City.