KEVIN P. CONNORS
Kevin Connors '69
Lucky Bag
From the 1969 Lucky Bag:
KEVIN PATRICK CONNORS
Wollaston, Massachusetts
Kevin Connors, a hearty draft of Irish brew, while not always considered officer timber, quickly removed all doubt when he threw his hat into the ring of dynamic devil-doers. A Harvard Intellect, biting wit and bevy of cogent-minded associates brought to the Naval Academy new frontiers of human derring-do. A close association with executive circles and local authorities enabled this pioneer of thought and deed to wrest from the ivy-clad traditionalists unequaled heights of personal discipline. Often a dark horse in the academic campaign, he time and time again left professor and peer alike breathless in amazement at his wizardry in the world of arts and letters.
KEVIN PATRICK CONNORS
Wollaston, Massachusetts
Kevin Connors, a hearty draft of Irish brew, while not always considered officer timber, quickly removed all doubt when he threw his hat into the ring of dynamic devil-doers. A Harvard Intellect, biting wit and bevy of cogent-minded associates brought to the Naval Academy new frontiers of human derring-do. A close association with executive circles and local authorities enabled this pioneer of thought and deed to wrest from the ivy-clad traditionalists unequaled heights of personal discipline. Often a dark horse in the academic campaign, he time and time again left professor and peer alike breathless in amazement at his wizardry in the world of arts and letters.
Inclusion in Memorial Hall
Though he is included on this website, Kevin was not on active military duty the morning of September 11, 2001, and is not listed in Memorial Hall.
Obituary
From The Patriot Ledger on October 1, 2001:
Kevin Connors seemed invincible to all who knew him.
His leadership and flair for life made it all the more difficult for his family to accept that the 55-year-old former Quincy resident died in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.
“Mentally and physically he was a very disciplined and intelligent person,” said his brother Russell.
A senior vice president for Euro Brokers Inc., Connors was working on the 84th floor of the World Trade Center south tower when the north tower was hit.
He had sent his brother Christopher an E-mail at 8:40 a.m. from his office computer making plans to talk later that day.
The family now treasures that E-mail, said his sister Sheila LeDuc of Lexington. It is also how the family knows that he was in the building when it was hit.
Connors made sure to stay in close contact with his siblings after his mother, Dorothy, died last year, said LeDuc. His father, William Francis, died four years ago. The family held a one-year memorial service for their mother this weekend, the event made all the more difficult by the absence of Kevin.
“In the past year he had the good sense to learn how fragile life is and how none of us will be around forever. Kevin took advantage of that and kept in close touch with each of us throughout the past year. In light of that, what a blessing,” Sheila said.
Connors was born in Boston and moved to Wollaston shortly thereafter. He was the oldest of five boys. He also had a sister. The family lived at 38 Ellington Road for several years before moving to 77 Adams Place in Quincy.
Connors attended the Massachusetts Fields School and St. Ann’s Elementary School in Quincy. He graduated from Boston College High School and was nominated by President John Kennedy to attend the U.S. Naval Academy. After graduating in 1969, he was commissioned as an ensign in the Navy. He earned an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
He always had a keen business and financial sense, and he followed his dream to work in the New York financial markets. His brother Russell, of Kittery Point, Maine, said the leadership skills his brother learned at Annapolis served him well throughout his business career.
“He had discipline out of Annapolis, and it was the way he grew up. It was the way he was in our family. He was very much a leader,” Russell said.
After getting his MBA, Connors moved to New York and worked for J.P. Morgan. He also was executive director of Morgan Stanley, where he established the company’s government bond department.
After several years with Morgan Stanley, he moved to Miami and founded his own investment firm, Connors & Cook. He later sold the business and established Kevin Connors and Co.
Connors returned to New York three years ago to work for Euro Brokers Inc. He lived in Greenwich, Connecticut, with his wife, two children and three stepchildren.
When not at work, he enjoyed sports, including sailing. In 1975 he, a brother and a friend survived the sinking of his 66-foot schooner off South America. They spent two days in a life raft before a cargo ship rescued them. After that, he canceled his planned trip around the world to return to Wall Street.
In July, he finished a 550-mile bike race across Iowa.
In addition to his brother Russell and sister, Sheila, he is survived by his wife, Sylvia (Loria) Connors; two sons, Shane, 20, and Terrence, 12, of Greenwich; three stepchildren, Karim, Davina and Daniella of Greenwich; and three other brothers, Christopher Connors of New York, William Connors of Hull and Douglas Connors of Quincy.
Photographs
Kevin Connors and USNA classmates on a ski trip, 1970. Standing L to R: Bill McCauley, Bert Conlon, Mark Warner, Bob Frangione. Hunched is Kevin Connors
Eulogy
Written by his son, Shane Kevin Connors, and read by Kevin's sister, Sheila LeDuc Connors, at his funeral on October 5, 2001:
There aren’t many greater honors that can be bestowed upon a person than being asked to provide a summation and reflection of another person’s life. It is an honor reserved for the closest friends and family to undertake. And today, it is an especially great honor because the person being remembered is my father, Kevin Connors. And if he’s listening somewhere up there, it might even be his favorite part—the part where someone speaks about how great he was, and everyone has to sit and listen. This might also be the last time that those who grew closest to my father over his lifetime are all together. And so I want to get it right, for him and for all of us.
It isn't easy to describe my dad. Kevin Patrick Connors was, if anything, larger than life. I could say the obvious, and I will-that he was brilliant, successful, and funny-and he was. But he was much more than that.
My father was brilliant, and he knew it. Everyone who knew him knew it too. I remember that he wanted to become a member of Mensa, the high-IQ society. To qualify, you have to be in the top two percent of the population. I remember he said that he only wanted to join if they gave out a membership card—so that if he did something really stupid, he could pull it out of his wallet and say, “It’s OK, I’m in Mensa.”
My father had a great sense of humor. Although it was unique and often unusual, it was wonderful. He loved to laugh, and he loved to make everyone else laugh. This is a man whose favorite movie might have been Dumb and Dumber. His humor was somewhere between Woody Allen’s and Howard Stern’s. He saw all the ironies in life, pointed them out, and made fun of them in a sarcastic and often shameless way.
My father earned and developed many things throughout his lifetime, the most valuable of which was his mind. From the day he was born, he strived to be the best at everything. He educated himself with the world around him. He quickly made his way through Boston College, the U.S. Naval Academy, and Dartmouth. Later, he prospered in his career on Wall Street.
His profession afforded him the lifestyle he lived—the houses he lived in and the Firebirds he sailed. It gave him the ability to raise his children in the best of neighborhoods and send them to the best schools. He wanted the very best for himself and his family, and for his family to have the advantages he never had growing up. He worked extremely hard to achieve his success and valued both his prosperity and the possessions that made life fun.
The Firebird was one of my father’s truly prized possessions. Many of my childhood memories are from that boat. I remember spending a Christmas on it and my Uncle Bill dressing up as Santa Claus. I remember waking up to the sound of the engines turning off—because they were always on—and hearing the well-known line from Ghostbusters, “We got one!” shouted from the back deck. This, of course, meant that they had caught a fish. Big or small, it didn’t matter—they had one. Soon, it became more fun to say the line than to actually catch a fish.
The most important thing to my father, though, was family. He loved his parents immensely. He loved his older sister, Sheila, and his four younger brothers: Billy, Chris, Doug, and Russell. And he loved them proudly and unconditionally. He loved family life, and when he created a family of his own, he managed to construct one of the most complex families I have ever known. Although the kinship lines weren’t always clear to my brother Terence and me, our father instilled in us that we were always to appreciate the value of our extended family and to do our part to maintain it.
My father also loved the outdoors. He loved rock climbing, boating, skiing, and had recently been enjoying cycling. At fifty-five years old, not only did he wake up at six o’clock every morning to commute from Greenwich to downtown New York City, but he had even begun riding his bike into work a few times a month—about a forty-mile trip each way. This past July, he participated in RAGBRAI (Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa), which is about 500 miles in six days. I’ve never seen him prouder than when he got back from that ride. He loved being healthy and worked hard to achieve the great shape he was in.
The last story I want to tell is one many of you have heard, but no eulogy about Kevin Connors would be complete without it. When my dad graduated from the Naval Academy, he, some friends, and his brother Chris bought the biggest boat they could afford with all the money they could scrape together, and set out to sail around the world. Now, I know there are different versions of this story, but the one everyone agrees on is this: the boat needed a repair, and they put it off because it would be cheaper to fix at their next destination. They got caught in a storm, the boat buckled, and it sank off the coast of Cuba. They spent two days on a raft before being rescued by a German freighter bound for Europe.
This story captures something essential about my father. Life was an adventure for him. He loved action, excitement, change, and variety. He had a restless nature. Most people live in one or two houses—maybe three—during their lifetimes. I can remember at least thirteen houses my father lived in since I was born. Thirteen houses, but only in three states.
The last time I saw my father was the weekend before the attack on the World Trade Center. We rode in the New York City Century Bike Tour, a thirty-five mile ride covering four of the five boroughs. I am so thankful for that day. At the time, it was just a bike tour and a fun outing. Looking back, I see it as my goodbye to him. We had great conversations, got a good workout, and even got lost for a little while. There’s nothing I would ever change about that day.
Kevin P. Connors died at the still-young age of fifty-five. He didn’t see his life as half over—he saw it as having another whole half to go, and he was looking forward to it. If anyone implied he was getting old, he would almost get mad, defending his age with pride.
It’s hard to “sum up” my father’s life when one could easily write an entire book about him. Maybe someone will…
When I was writing this eulogy, I realized I didn’t know how to refer to my father’s existence now that he’s gone. Was he a great man? Or is he a great man? Did we love him? Or do we love him? Then I realized there are three correct ways to speak of him: He was a great man, he is a great man, and he will forever be a great man. We did love him, we do love him, and we will always love him. We missed him when he wasn’t near us, we miss him now, and we will miss him for the rest of our lives.
Remembrances
From "The Legacy of the Class of 1969":
Kevin Patrick Connors was born in Boston and grew up in Quincy, Mass. He graduated from Boston College High School and won an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, where he was a well-liked member of 23rd Company. He was commissioned an Ensign upon graduation.
Kevin reported to NAS Pensacola for primary flight training. To some, Kevin appeared less than enthusiastic about the Navy. With the war in Vietnam winding down, flight classes were delayed due to a surplus of students and a declining number of fleet “seats.”
This resulted in excess free time to stray from the straight and narrow. Given this situation, and Kevin’s free spirit, he, like many young officers, was offered an exit from the program and the Navy. Kevin jumped at the opportunity and, having been accepted to graduate school at Dartmouth, eagerly made the transition.
Receiving his MBA, Kevin took his talents to Wall Street, specifically as a trader in the US Treasury Securities market where he made a name for himself as an astute and intelligent player. Lured by the excitement of New York and the securities industry a few classmates whose relationship had become closer over the years joined Kevin in New York, employed by similar firms, becoming part of a small USNA network. After receiving his MBA, Kevin was initially worked for J.P. Morgan Bank. He subsequently took a job as a managing director at Morgan Stanley, where he established the government bond department.
Kevin later founded and then sold Connors and Cook, an investment firm. For a time he operated Kevin Connors and Company near his home in Miami. He returned to New York and for the last three years held senior management positions at Euro Brokers Inc.
An avid sailor, Kevin, his brother Chris, and two friends survived the sinking of his 66-foot motor yacht “Firebird” off the coast of South America in 1975.
After two days in a life raft, the crew was rescued by a cargo ship. Following this adventure, Kevin canceled plans to travel around the world and returned to Wall Street.
He enjoyed organizing regular family gatherings full of activities. In July, 2001 for example, he completed a 550-mile bike ride across Iowa and the Midwest.
Kevin continued finding varying levels of success in the markets but most of all, he enjoyed being his own boss.
Then on the morning of Sept 11, 2001 Kevin was at work buying and selling U.S. Treasury securities as a senior vice president of Euro Brokers Inc., a brokerage firm with offices high up in the World Trade Center.
Kevin died in the World Trade Center that day as a result of those terrorist attacks.
He was among the many whose bodies were never found.
Surviving are his wife, Sylvia Loria Connors; two sons, Shane and Terence; three stepchildren, Karim, Davina and Daniella, all of Greenwich; a sister, Sheila Connors LeDuc of Lexington, Mass.; four brothers, Christopher of New York City and York, Maine; William of Hull, Mass.; Douglas of Quincy, and Russell of Kittery Point, Maine. A memorial Mass was celebrated at St. Michael's Church, in Greenwich, Connecticut and attended by a number of Kevin’s company mates from the 23rd company.
From Legacy.com:
Whether it was climbing a mountain, playing charades or challenging his four brothers and his sister to a game of Monopoly, Kevin Connors would not be defeated. At work, there was the thrill of picking the next big investment for clients of Euro Brokers, where he was a vice president. At home, the simplest of family gatherings became thrill-seeking adventures. Children would be pitted against adults, and Mr. Connors, 55, would side with the team he thought had the best chance of winning.
"My brother was a voracious fan of winning at all things," said Sheila Connors LeDuc. "He once bought a boat to sail around the world. When it sank off the coast of South America, he beat the ocean by not drowning."
And when planes struck the World Trade Center, Mrs. LeDuc was certain that her brother would survive once more. Slowly, she has had to accept another probability. "This was bigger than the boat going down," she said. "I just hope he is at peace and that those of us who mourn him can come to the same peace."
Kevin is one of 17 members of the Class of 1969 on Virtual Memorial Hall.
The "category" links below lead to lists of related Honorees; use them to explore further the service and sacrifice of alumni in Memorial Hall.