This is a flag to show a post on the sidebar.
DMA Members
The final golf event of the year!
Location: Woodway Country Club
Date: Thursday – October 15
Time: 9 AM Shotgun Start
Cost:
$192 paid at the Club
Includes: 18 holes of golf; golf cart and luncheon.
Signups: first come – first playing (we have a limited number of player times reserved).
Contact if interested
Bob McGroarty
The hale and hearty hikers will stroll the East and West Beach trails in Sherwood Island State Park this Thursday morning, October 8. The trails are level and approximately 3 miles long. Pets on leash are permitted in the park, as are friends and spouses of DMA members. For those wishing to carpool, we will meet at the back parking area of the DCA at 9:30 a.m. For those driving directly, we will meet at the Nature Center parking area in the east parking lot at the park, and will start and end our hike from the Nature Center.
After the hike, for those wishing to partake, we will enjoy lunch at Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana in Westport.
Our next meeting is Thursday, October 15 at 2PM in the Lillian Gade Room, 2nd Floor in the DCA. Note that we are back to our regularly scheduled time for this meeting. The Zoom link appears at the bottom of this email. We are electrified to have Harry Bergen moderate our discussion on the power shortfall facing this country and the possible solutions. Here is a summary along with pre-reading suggestions:
Electron Denial? The Future of Power
Electricity demand is predicted to grow significantly over the next 5 to 10 years and the general consensus is that the growth is largely due to an increase in data centers. In contrast with Data Centers that have been in use for decades, Data Centers are now hosting AI services which are extremely hungry in terms of computing power and electric power. At this session we will discuss the numerous issues surrounding this increase in Electric Power Demand including:
Suggested reading :
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/electricity.php?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Click below for details.
Thursday, October 22, at 8:36 a.m. at Darien Metro-North Station or 8:39 a.m. at Noroton Heights Metro-North Station
On Thursday, October 22nd, the Wanderers will travel to Greenpoint, Brooklyn and wander on its main commercial streets, through two of its largest parks and past two significant houses of worship. We will take the Metro North train to Grand Central that leaves the Darien train station at 8:36 a.m. and the Noroton Heights train at 8:39 a.m. As usual, we will gather at the Information Booth on the main floor of Grand Central and proceed together by Subway to Greenpoint.
The Wanderers will wander in Greenpoint on commercial streets populated by many small Polish- American businesses. This wandering will take the Wanderers through McGolrick Park and to its historically significant Monitor Monument, through McCarren Park and past the largest public swimming pool in NYC, to Popirluszko Square with its unusual history and on tree-lined residential streets bordering the parks. The wanderers also plan to visit the beautiful St. Stanislaus Kostka Church and wander past the impressive Transfiguration of our Lord Russian Orthodox Cathedral.
In keeping with the Polish-American focus of this wandering, the Wanderers will have lunch at Pierozek Restaurant, 592 Manhattan Ave., Brooklyn (718-576-3866), a restaurant that claims to be the home of the most authentic handmade Polish Pierogi in New York. After lunch, the Wanderers will wander to the NYC Ferry’s Greenpoint Landing and enjoy the wonderful views available on the ferry ride across the East River to the NYC Ferry’s East 34th Street Landing in Manhattan. The Wanderers will wander from the East 34th Street Landing to Grand Central and return home via Metro-North.
Contact: Chet Cobb, Harry Bergen or Bill Tamme
“From the bestselling, prize-winning author of SAY NOTHING, a powerfully compelling account of a family devastated by the apparent suicide of their nineteen year-old son, only to discover he had created a separate identity which drew him into the dangerous international criminal underworld underlying London’s glittering surface. In the early morning of November 29th, 2019, surveillance cameras at the headquarters of MI6, Britain’s spy agency, captured a video of a young man pacing back and forth on a balcony of Riverwalk, a luxury building on the opposite bank of the Thames River. At 2:24 a.m., he jumped. In a quiet London neighborhood several miles away, Rachelle Brettler was worried. She hadn’t heard from her son Zac, who told her he had gone to stay with a friend for the night, but wasn’t answering his phone. Five days later, a police car pulled up in front of the house, and she knew she was about to hear the news every parent dreads: Her son was dead. In their unbearable grief, Rachelle and her husband Matthew tried to understand what had happened to Zac. He had his troubles, but in no way seemed suicidal. But his death was just the beginning of the shocks: The man who owned the apartment in Riverwalk, a wealthy businessman named Akbar Shamji, told them he knew Zac by a different identity: Zac Ismailov, the child of a wealthy Russian oligarch, whose widowed mother was living in Dubai and freezing him out of his inheritance. Then they learned that the apartment was occupied by a notorious gangster known as “Indian Dave” in London criminal circles. Indian Dave had been implicated in a gangland slaying and fled the country, but for opaque reasons came back to England and was never prosecuted. From the physical evidence and recovered text messages between Shamji and Sharma, it appeared something very different than a suicide had taken place in Riverwalk that night. But to the immense frustration of the Brettlers, Scotland Yard seemed to have no interest in investigating. In a bravura piece of reporting and writing, Patrick Radden Keefe delves into a story that peels back multiple layers of mystery, and exposes the seedy truths beneath the glamourous London of posh mansions and private night clubs, a world sustained and abetted by fundamental corruption. Zac Brettler was not the only person in the tale spinning lies. London Falling is a mesmerizing investigation of an inexplicable death, fueled by multiple turns and revelations, but at its heart it is a deeply empathetic portrait of a family trying to understand not just why their son died, but who he was”– Provided by publisher.
Get ready for a broad ranging and provocative talk by a notable Wall Street veteran. Whitney Tilson’s career has been focused on managing risks with investments. His book, The Art of Playing Defense is meant to be a practical and actionable guide filled with common-sense ideas for avoiding calamities, such as marrying the wrong person or having a good marriage go bad, getting thrown in jail, going bankrupt, or suffering a debilitating illness or injury.
Whitney says, “I’ve managed to avoid these disastrous outcomes – and hope I can help you do so as well! It’s no fun thinking about all the things that can go wrong in life, but if you want to get ahead, you have to start by not falling behind.”
As a successful investor, we asked Mr. Tilson to share with us his approach which has helped him and others avoid the major market downturns of the 21st Century. We are also curious about his “Twelve Questions to Ask before Marrying Someone” and how his 25-year-old daughter received his advice. With our proximity to NYC, we also couldn’t pass up the opportunity to hear from him about his recent run for the Democratic nomination for mayor in 2025.
Referred to the DMA by Mark Nunan
Whitney Tilson
Whitney Tilson is Editor of Stansberry Research, which provides advice, commentary and in-depth research and analysis to help people become better investors. The business has more than 100,000 paid subscribers. Mr. Tilson founded and, for nearly two decades, ran Kase Capital Management, which managed three value-oriented hedge funds and two mutual funds, with assets that peaked at over $200 million.
Mr. Tilson published his fourth book in 2021, The Art of Playing Defense: How to Get Ahead by Not Falling Behind. He has also co-authored two books, The Art of Value Investing: How the World’s Best Investors Beat the Market (2013) and More Mortgage Meltdown: 6 Ways to Profit in These Bad Times (2009), and was a contributor to Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger (2005), the definitive book on Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger. In addition, he has written for Forbes, the Financial Times, Kiplinger’s, the Motley Fool and TheStreet.com.
He has appeared dozens of times on CNBC, Bloomberg TV and Fox Business Network, was on the cover of the July 2007 Kiplinger’s, has been profiled by the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, and has spoken widely on value investing.
Prior to launching his investment career in 1999, Mr. Tilson spent five years working with Harvard Business School Professor Michael E. Porter studying the competitiveness of inner cities and inner-city-based companies nationwide. He and Professor Porter founded the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, of which Mr. Tilson was Executive Director. Mr. Tilson also led the effort to create ICV Partners, a national for-profit private equity fund focused on minority-owned and inner-city businesses that has raised nearly $500 million.
Mr. Tilson received an MBA with High Distinction from the Harvard Business School, where he was elected a Baker Scholar (top 5% of class), and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College.
Mr. Tilson is an avid mountaineer – he climbed the Nose of El Capitan in June 2020 and has summited Mt. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Blanc, the Matterhorn and the Eiger. He also regularly competes in obstacle course races, including the world championships pro division. He has run seven 24-hour World’s Toughest Mudders, winning the 50+ age group twice and setting the all-time age-group record of 75 miles in 2016.
Mr. Tilson spent much of his childhood in Tanzania and Nicaragua (his parents are both educators, were among the first couples to meet and marry in the Peace Corps, and have retired in Kenya). Consequently, Mr. Tilson is involved with a number of charities focused on Ukraine (to which he has traveled four times since the invasion and raised more than $18 million), education reform and Africa. Most recently, he was a candidate in the 2025 Democratic primary for Mayor of New York City.
Mr. Tilson lives in Manhattan with his wife of 32 years, with whom he has three adult daughters
Why did one of our greatest presidents (FDR) ruthlessly persecute one of the richest men in America (Andrew Mellon)?
By any measure, Franklin D. Roosevelt is one our most admired presidents. But behind the beaming smile and folksy fireside chats was a ruthless politician willing to use the massive powers of the federal government to crush his enemies. In this thrilling exposé, Greg Steinmetz recounts how FDR targeted America’s third-richest man to prove his progressive credentials and rally support for his sweeping social agenda.
He found his scapegoat in former Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon. Mellon’s name dripped riches. More than any other, it symbolized the Roaring Twenties economic boom and the crack up that followed. FDR publicly blamed Mellon for the Great Depression, using him as a convenient diversion from the New Deal’s failure to bring jobs back to a devastated economy.
Roosevelt tortured the aging, frail and reclusive Mellon, cooking up a fake criminal charge in a bid to put him behind bars. When that fizzled, Roosevelt kept up the fight by making Mellon miserable in tax court. Mellon died before the verdict but not until, one final, jaw dropping twist occurred in this strange clash of titans.
This shocking book reveals the secret sinister side of Roosevelt—and explains how big government won out of over the libertarian economic order that had reigned since the birth of the republic.
There will be a book signing after the talk with a Barrett’s Bookstore representative on-site at the entryway table.
Greg Steinmetz Biography
Greg Steinmetz is an American journalist, retired securities analyst and author. He previously worked for The Wall Street Journal, where he covered investment banking before becoming Berlin Bureau Chief and then London Bureau Chief. His first book, The Richest Man Who Ever Lived: The Life and Times of Jacob Fugger, was heralded by Andrew Ross Sorkin as one of the best reads of 2015. The Wall Street Journal and Jim Cramer named his second book, American Rascal: How Jay Gould Built Wall Street’s Biggest Fortune, as a top book of 2025.
Steinmetz was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated from Colgate University in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and German, and earned a master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
Steinmetz spent 15 years working as a journalist for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, the Houston Chronicle, Newsday, and The Wall Street Journal. He served as the Bureau Chief for The Wall Street Journal in Berlin and London. In 2023, he retired from a New York money management firm where he was a partner and a member of the board of a mutual fund.
His third book, The President and the Plutocrat: Roosevelt, Mellon and the Triumph of Big Government, has been just published in the fall of 2026.
.
After a devastating run of German victories, Allied troops are beginning to halt Hitler’s advance. But far from the battlefields, Allied scientists are struggling. Intelligence reports put them a distant second behind the Germans in a competition that could determine the outcome of the war: the race to build the world’s first nuclear weapon.
During World War II, a group of physicists who had once been close friends found themselves on opposite sides of a deadly race. German scientist Werner Heisenberg and American physicists Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and Sam Goudsmit were all leading figures in nuclear research. But after the attack on Pearl Harbor, their shared passion for science turned into a high-stakes competition to build the world’s first atomic bomb—a weapon that could determine the outcome of the war.
Heisenberg had a two-year head start, and the possibility that Nazi Germany might beat the Allies to the bomb terrified American scientists. The Manhattan Project, led by U.S. Army General Leslie Groves, became a massive effort to catch up. Fear of Heisenberg haunted Manhattan Project scientists. At one point, Groves even approved plans to bomb Heisenberg’s lab and assassinate him to stop Germany’s progress. Meanwhile, Sam Goudsmit led a secret military unit tasked with tracking down Heisenberg and uncovering the truth about the Nazi nuclear program. What they found would surprise everyone. The Greatest Scientific Gamble tells the dramatic and little-known story of how personal relationships, wartime fear, and scientific ambition collided in the race to unlock the power of the atom.
There will be a book signing after the talk signing with a Barrett’s Bookstore representative on-site at the entryway table.
Michael Joseloff
Michael Joseloff is a TV news and documentary producer living in New York City and winner of four Emmy awards. His work has aired on ABC, CBS, PBS and numerous cable TV networks.
He is author of The Greatest Scientific Gamble (Michigan State University Press) and Chasing Heisenberg: The Race for the Atom Bomb (Amazon Publishing).
He has produced programs for the acclaimed PBS series FRONTLINE as well as a business-related documentary, crime dramas, biographies and reality-based programs for cable tv. Before that he produced hundreds of reports for The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour on PBS about current events, history, science and more.
The 2027 open enrollment season will be one of the most tumultuous in recent years. Key trends in the Medicare marketplace are the elimination of temporary Part D premium subsidies and increased regulatory scrutiny of Medicare Advantage Plans. Overall Advantage Plan growth has slowed and aggressive hospital negotiations, benefit reductions, reduced product offerings, and retraction from unprofitable markets are common.
Other developments affecting the environment include the elimination of enhanced subsidies in the individual market in 2026 and the cuts in Medicaid slated to take effect in 2027. These changes will disrupt hospital finances and challenges to our local hospitals can affect us all.
Finally, all Americans will continue to be affected by the approval of astoundingly expensive new prescription drugs.
Please join Maura Carley for a discussion on how to avoid the landmines integral to the healthcare experience in the U.S.
Maura Carley, Founder and CEO Healthcare Navigation, LLC
Maura Carley is Founder and CEO of Healthcare Navigation LLC, a national healthcare advocacy and health insurance consulting firm.
Before founding Healthcare Navigation, Carley served in executive positions both in the hospital and insurance industries. She is a former Regional Director of Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s oldest and largest HMOs. She began her career as an assistant administrator at Yale-New Haven Hospital and subsequently served as Vice President of Operations at Stamford Hospital.
Carley received her Master’s in Public Health from Yale University and completed an Executive Management Program through the Stanford University Business School. She is a fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives and a certified health insurance consultant.
She has served on many non-profit boards in Connecticut and New York. Carley served on the Board of Directors for Access Health CT and is a former Vice Chair of the Darien Social Services Commission. She currently serves on the Board of the Connecticut Women’s Forum, a chapter of the International Women’s Forum.
Carley has spoken on healthcare topics at programs across the United States and has been interviewed in articles for many major national periodicals.
Carley is also the author of Health Insurance: Navigating Traps and Gaps, which became Amazon’s #1 best seller on health insurance shortly after its publication in 2012 and was awarded the Living Now Book award in 2015. Many changes have occurred since Navigating Traps and Gaps was published but because it is a book of actual client case studies, it documents the history of challenges Americans face dealing with our healthcare environment, many of which remain today.
The Mather Legacy
Directed by Tim Smith and narrated by Scott Pelley, this short film is a powerful tribute to both the Mather family and the enduring American spirit. Spanning nearly four centuries and interviewing experts in American history, The Mather Legacy chronicles the family’s journey from their 1635 arrival in the New World to the present day.
Darien’s Mather Homestead. Built in 1778 and raided by Tories during the Revolutionary War, Mather Homestead was home to six generations of Mathers, including Moses Mather, Darien’s leading voice for freedom in 1778. It is now dedicated to historical education.
There will be discussion after the 30-minute film.
Tim Smith
Over the last 25 years, Tim has excelled as a television news producer adept at producing top rated and award-winning documentaries, interviews & news segments for America’s leading news outlets. The quality of his work is attested to by winning a national and regional Emmy, five Emmy nominations, two Gracie Awards, Grierson Award, Genesis nomination & Cable Ace nomination.
Tim has worked with and directed top news talent including Lester Holt, Brian Williams, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Judy Woodruff, Norah O’Donnell, Jim Lehrer, Bob Woodward, Chuck Todd, Charlie Rose, Natalie Morales, Roger Mudd and Savannah Guthrie. His strong record of big gets includes interviews with Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Dick Cheney, John Updike, Joe Biden, Audrey Hepburn, Ted Kennedy, Sandra Day O’Conner, Gerald Ford, Laura Bush, Donald Trump and Mitt Romney.
Samantha Gault
Samantha is the Executive Director of the Mather Homestead Foundation and has a BA from Dartmouth College and an MA from Middlebury College. This beautifully preserved house and landmark offers a glimpse into American revolutionary history through rich and engaging programming, including literary conversations, lectures, and events. This past year Samantha and the Mather Homestead have had a focus on the America 250 celebration from the point of view of Middlesex Parish. Samantha reflected, “for me, studying history and looking back has always been about not losing my way. How can you know where you are or where you are going if you do not know where you have been? That is as important for nations and communities as it is for individuals”.
Global Oil and Gas Market
Steve Villas analyzes the global oil market, highlighting that while the United States leads global production at over 13 million barrels per day due to horizontal drilling and hydrofracking, it remains reliant on imports due to domestic demand and refinery setups. The global market handles roughly 100 million barrels daily, with demand shifting from flat Western consumption toward rapidly growing middle classes in China and India. He will also discuss the impact of the Iran war and the periodic closing of the Strait of Hormuz on supply.
Steve demystifies oil pricing and discusses other geopolitical influences, including how OPEC Plus manages global pricing through strict production quotas rather than fixed prices, and how the Russian shadow fleet circumvents international price caps using covert ship-to-ship transfers. Villas has strong confidence in free markets, asserting that society will never fully run out of oil, though its long-term market dominance will eventually transition to new technologies.
Steve graduated from Lehigh University with a BS degree in engineering and obtained his MBA in finance from the Wharton School, Univ. of Pennsylvania. He has worked his entire 45-year career in the petroleum industry, holding positions with Exxon, Standard Oil of Ohio, British Petroleum, and Hess Corp. Steve has been involved with, and spoke on, chemical plant design, advertising and promotion, supply and logistics, government affairs, oil and gas trading, financial hedging, oil and gas marketing, and other current topics of interest in the global oil markets.
Add “world traveler” to the list. Steve logged more than 6.5 million frequent flier miles over his career. “I’ve been to Russia six times, China three times, and I lost track of Southeast Asia,” he says. When Villas talks, his stories blend humor, humility, and gratitude. His legacy isn’t just financial. It’s the ripple effect of generosity, mentorship, and heart. “Money isn’t the most important thing you can give,” he says. “What matters is what you share of yourself.”
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑