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Work Hard, Play Hard
Feet Unprecedented
Area business people share their cures for the summertime blues
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Business New Haven
5/31/1999
By: Abigail White
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Charles Andriole works in New Haven as a senior vice president of investments for Prudential Securities. There he oversees client investments worth in excess of $225 million dollars.
That responsibility notwithstanding, Andriole takes time out from his business responsibilities to participate in one of his favorite summertime activities: soccer.
“Obviously this a business that's extremely intense,” Andriole says, “and I think it's interesting that with the free time I have, I choose to pursue a very competitive sport that's also very intense.”
For ten years Andriole has been a member of a statewide, men's over-30 soccer circuit competing against teams all across the state. “It's modeled after the European system with a four-division structure,” Andriole explains. “There are 40 teams in the league playing games weekly throughout in the state.”
Andriole plays on the Guilford Soccer Club, comprising players from Guilford and Branford. “We play a very competitive 25 to 30 game schedule made up of Sunday games, including the State Cup Tournament, throughout the regular season.”
Working in the investment-management industry, a business characterized by constantly changing financial markets, Andriole works just as hard in the summertime as he does throughout the rest of the year.
“My objective is to take care of my clients to the best of my ability,” Andriole says. “I believe if we take care of our clients well, their success as well as ours will follow. So everything we do is in pursuit of this objective.”
Andriole, like many other working professionals, seeks success in recreation as well as in his profession. “They're totally focused on their hobby or whatever it is,” Andriole says of professionals like himself. “It's like flipping a switch into a different person - a soccer player, a bicyclist, or whatever. So they're actually playing two roles.”
“I don't know if there's a direct correlation between recreation and business success, but certainly [soccer] is recreation that's competitive and enjoyable,” Andriole notes. “It's a diversion from what is an extremely intense business: money management. In that way it's directly correlated to my success.”
In addition to playing soccer himself, Andriole coaches an under 23-soccer team in Branford, occasionally takes mountain bike trips, and wakeboards out of Branford's Thimble Islands. [Wakeboarding is similar to water-skiing on a large, flat board slightly wider than a snowboard.] Andriole also devotes some of his time to volunteer work as a trustee of the United Way of Branford, and is a former director of the Children's Center in Hamden.
Up a Creek with a Paddle
Jack Embersitts, chairman and CEO of Facilities Resource Management in Madison, enjoys wending his way through an estuary in his kayak, sneaking up on the birds and crabs that don't hear him coming.
Embersitts began kayaking three years ago when he and his wife Lucinda were looking for a way to find some peace and quiet. They discovered it about a half a mile out into the water.
“Kayaking is about as peaceful as it gets,” Embersitts says. “It's pretty hard for people to find you, and there are no cell phones.”
Embersitts and his partner, Peter Neuman, founded Facilities Resource Management 23 years ago. The firm helps manage such facilities as non-profit universities, medical centers and hospitals by providing support for building maintenance, construction, chiller plant operations and other “behind-the-scenes areas.”
“Unlike my initial thinking that I was too busy in my business to be able to devote to another activity,” Embersitts explains, “it's quite the contrary. It can be very relaxing having your business pressures evaporate for the time spent doing another kind of activity.
“I think that's the reason why everybody who's serious in business has to find one or a series of outlets: so that they can be ready to go back to work and be fresh,” Embersitts explains. “If you don't have those interests in life, you become not only a dull human being, but a less effective leader.
“You've got to be both physically fit as well as mentally ready if you're going to be sharp, and really be effective with your clients or the people in your company. The way to be mentally ready is to have an erasure.”
Up until about three years ago one of Embersitts' “erasures” was flying his plane. Now it's kayaking on the shore near his home in Madison. “We go out for about four hours at a time,” Embersitts says. “After you come back from that you know you've had a workout.”
To stay in shape for kayaking Embersitts rises 4:30 in the morning and goes out for a run. “As a matter of fact, I've been running for the last 30 years, between five and seven miles every day up until a year ago,” he explains. “If I don't run, I find I start to go slow mentally.”
Besides kayaking, Embersitts enjoys tennis, golf, snorkeling, “and after that it's crazy things on the spur of the moment like bungie jumping and parapenting [sort of a cross between hang-gliding and skydiving],” Embersitts says. “We have a lot of fun, and we're always looking for something new to test the imagination and the nerve centers.”
Tending His Garden
When Gary Parrington isn't working as executive director of the SARAH (Shoreline Alliance for the Retarded & Handicapped) Endowment Foundation in Guilford, he likes to tend to the plants and soil around his bed-and-breakfast, Guilford Corners.
“That's what I do in my spare time - I run another business,” Parrington says. “There are probably those who say I'm completely mentally ill. But working with the plants and running the business is a nice balance for me.”
SARAH is a family of agencies on the shoreline that provides programs and services for children and adults with disabilities. “Our role at the Endowment Foundation is to promote community understanding of the work that SARAH does and to help foster community support.”
Parrington purchased Guilford Corners in 1996 with his partner, Suzie Balestracci. The two have been working on refurbishing the house and improving the grounds through various landscaping and gardening projects.
“It's interesting to note that the location of Guilford Corners is included in the Guilford Historic District, and is also protected by easements under the Connecticut Trust,” Parrington says. “That's an important caveat, because as we reshape our landscaping and do our plantings we do so with the knowledge and approval of those authorities.”
Adds Parrington, “For example, I think one of the most exciting landscaping projects involving this was when we wanted to create a natural and appealing barrier between the commercial zone and our residential and historic zone. We went with using ten Leyland cyprus evergreens. These evergreens grow at a very rapid rate, and hopefully will soon become a very full, rich, thick everygreen fence - something that neighbors on both sides can enjoy equally.”
Another project Parrington is working on the property is re-gardening along the inside of a long picket fence.
“When we were cleaning up the garden area there we discovered pieces of seashells in the soil, and we thought that was probably at one time used as a ground cover,” Parrington says. “We thought that was an appealing idea so we brought in lots of shells and put them around the plants.
“What we found out was that while we had this beautiful white shell covering for the last two years, the leaves that come down in the fall stain the white luster that the shells have.”
The lesson? “You have what appears to be these great ideas and then you get stuck with the practical reality that prevents you from sticking with it. And beside the staining of the shells, the other practical lesson in landscaping was the difficulty of doing the replanting of the perennials with all the shells in the way.”
Parrington says that working the grounds at the bed-and-breakfast is perfectly compatible with the work he does at SARAH because of the passion he has working on his historic gem when he leaves work in the evening.
“There's this balance I have between these two worlds,” Parrington says. “I think it's important to be passionate about something other than your work, something with a whole new set of variables to give you the variety so you don't become a johnny one-note in life.”
Parrington likes regaling his B&B guests about the local area and his work at SARAH, and sometimes finds them to be so inspired to hear about his work that they will write out a donation check, right there on his dining room table.
“Since becoming a caregiver to the property the amount of time I've spent on the tennis court and the golf course has pretty much dwindled away,” Parrington says. “The upkeep and running of the B&B has pretty much filled my free time and so I've made a trade-off between this and golf and tennis. Suzie and I still make time for walking and biking, just for our own edification.”
Sailing Away
Bill Gunther, president of George Schmitt Co., parent company of Guilford Gravure, takes advantage of the summer months by racing sailboats. At Guilford Gravure, Gunther oversees the rotogravure printing operations the company does for consumer packaging products to some high security printing for the U.S. Government.
“It's a tremendous source of relaxation and fun,” Gunther says. “When you step on the boat, especially when you do a long-distance race and you're going offshore, you are totally immersed - not only in the racing tactics, but in the hour-to-hour changes in the environment. You're able to concentrate exclusively on sailing and just completely leave business and other things ashore.”
This summer Gunther will take his 46-foot, custom McCurdy Rhodes sailboat, Floya, and a crew of ten on a long-distance race from Marblehead, Mass. to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
“Besides racing, when we get to Halifax we'll cross back along the coast of Nova Scotia and go into some very secluded anchorages: places where oftentimes we will be the only boat. Then we will sail the boat over to Maine and do some cruising there, which is just wonderful.”
This will be Gunther's fifth Marblehead-to-Halifax race, which will begin on July 11 and end late on July 13 or early on the 14 - depending on time and tide. “Over the years we've raced from Newport to Bermuda, and from Stamford to the Vineyard and back.”
Gunther has brought back a few trophies and cups for these races. “We've won in our class twice in the Newport-to-Bermuda race,” Gunther said, “and twice we've won the Northern Ocean Racing Trophy.” This trophy is awarded to the group that scores best in a series of three long-distance races: including either the Newport-to-Bermuda or Marblehead-to-Halifax races and the Stamford-Vineyard Race (out to the Vineyard Tower and back).
Gunther started racing as a child aboard his father's boats in the Sachem's Head area in Guilford. When he isn't involved in a long-distance race he takes Floya out around the Guilford shoreline.
“Sometimes we'll go out for a sail and end up in the Thimble Islands [of Branford] for dinner. The Thimble Islands area is just beautiful, and we're lucky to have them so close,” Gunther says. “There are some exclusive places you can go to and spend the night with a reasonable amount of protection [from weather] and have the place all to yourself.”
Hardball Odyssey
Chris Getman, first vice president/investments of Merrill Lynch in New Haven, looks forward to summertime to continue a mission he set out on nine years ago: visiting every Major League ballpark.
It all started back in 1990 when he heard that there were plans to shut down the old Comiskey Park on Chicago's South Side and build a new field. So Getman and his friend Terry Chatfield, president of Housatonic Lumber Co. in Derby, decided to go see a game there before they tore it down.
“That was a great trip that year,” Getman says. “We went to Cleveland on a Wednesday night and saw the Indians play. Then we went to Chicago and saw the Cubs play at Wrigley Field the next day. Then we went to Comiskey Park and saw a game there that night. Then we came back here and played in a golf tournament at Yale on Friday. Talk about two little kids.”
The old Comiskey Park was taken down that summer of 1990, and Getman and Chatfield have since visited the new Comiskey Park, naturally. “We've been to all the new ones except for [Turner Field in] Atlanta,” Getman said. “They just built it last year, and we got to the old one [Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium] right before the Olympics in 1996.”
“We've been to, if I counted them up, 30 ballparks. We just have a great time doing this,” Getman adds. “So far this year we've seen two games: we saw Arizona play the Colorado Rockies at Phoenix, and we saw Seattle play Kansas City at Seattle.” (This frequent-flyer-miled-larded doubleheader, it should be added, took place on the same weekend.)
“We wanted to go to Seattle this year because that stadium [the Kingdome] is going to cease to exist in July when they open the one. We had to get out there before they did that.”
“We have two parks left to go,” Getman said. “Tampa Bay and the new Atlanta stadium. But by the time we complete those, we'll have to go back to St. Louis and Kansas City because, as purists, we would argue that because when we we're there when they had artificial turf - now they're grass - so we have to go back and do those.”
Getman says he and Chatfield have a lot of fun scheduling their summer baseball trips; they average about three trips a year. Getman notes that the logistics can get to be a little tricky some seasons.
Let him explain. “Last summer we landed in Chicago's O'Hare's Airport at 5:30 on a Thursday night, went into the hotel to check our bags and we were down in the new Comiskey Park for the opening pitch at 7:05.
“Then we went over to Cleveland the next day. We played a little golf, saw a ball game, got up early the next day and went to Pittsburgh, played a little golf and saw another ball game. That was a great trip.”
“It's something we both look forward to, to get away from work,” Getman explains. “We knock them off as we go along and we have such a great photo album of every park we've been to.”
Of course, like clock-defying element of the game itself, Getman and Chatfield understand that theirs is a quest without a finish line.
“They keep building all these new stadiums,” Getman says. “So the logical thing would be to go to Atlanta and Tampa Bay and then go back for some of the new ones.
“It's going to be fun.” BNH
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