Navigator.

Many of us attend seemingly endless board meetings, committee meetings, and council meetings; we may start to get bored, look at our cell phones, look out the window, get a water and generally get unwound by some of the monotony that is inherent in process driven circumstances. There are very few times in my life when I can recall attending a process centered meeting, that is, one in which rubrics for Associations or Universities were being established, wherein there was actually excitement and wherein you could sense that you were playing with a class of valedictorians rather than the usual mix. I will never forget meeting for the first time with Dick Kennedy, Dan Schmidt, Bob Mangino, Susan Mack, Charlie Havens, Ron Jacks, Mark Gurevitz, Charlie Foss, and Ed Rondepierre to form ARIAS•U.S. At that meeting, unlike other meetings where everyone is simply playing checkers just to get across the board, this was world class chess where extraordinarily bright people were moving players and moving ideas and all with a lofty common objective – to seize the moment and to create, out of a few good concepts, a viable process that would endure and grow as it has today into an enormously useful, intelligent organization for the top players in the international insurance-legal sphere. I refer to ARIAS•U.S. When I learned of Ed Rondepierre’s passing, I thought to myself that I felt that it was almost impossible that this giant of a man and friend could have actually left that circle of intelligence and leadership that he helped spark in 1995. His life was rich and productive. Ed held a J.D. from the Temple University School of Law and a B.S. from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. He was admitted to and held membership in the District Of Columbia Bar, the Connecticut Bar Association, The American Bar Association, the Inter American Bar Association and the U.S. Supreme Court. Following Service as a licensed officer on merchant vessels and a commissioned officer on U.S. Navy vessels, Ed embarked on his insurance career in 1955 with INA (Insurance Company of North America) as a Marine Surveyor and would go on to become General Counsel of the INA Group in 1970 and Deputy Chief of Legal Affairs in 1976. He joined General Reinsurance Corporation in Greenwich in 1977, as Senior Vice President and General Counsel. He served on the Board of the International Association of Defense Counsel during his tenure and authored several industry books. After retiring in 1995, he was a co-founder and served as President and Director Emeritus of ARIAS•U.S. and as a highly respected certified arbitrator/umpire. An avid sailor, he was a member of the Stamford Yacht Club where he served as secretary on the board of directors. As a navigator, a leader in the most complex of insurance-legal waters, he will not soon be forgotten. Our sympathies to Nan and to the family.