Paul Wallace Henry – 50th Reunion Essay

Paul Wallace Henry

34 Hopkins Road

Boston, MA 02130

phenry617@aol.com

617-947-5020

Spouse(s): Susan Hackley (1993-present); Tanya Contos (1974-1989)

Child(ren): Alexander Henry (1980); stepchildren: Zachary Johnson (1981); Daphne Berger (1983)

Grandchild(ren): Daphne’ s children: Jackson Brooks Berger (2014); Hudson Hackley Berger (2016)

Education: Northeastern, MBA, 1981; Yale, BA, 1969; Phillips Academy (Andover), 1965

Career: Wealth Management (5 years), Entrepreneur (30 years)

Avocations: Tennis (was President of Longwood Cricket Club), Golf, Skiing, Piano (classical), Movies

College: Calhoun (Hopper)

Thoughts on Yale and Afterwards

Yale was and is a wonderful institution, with vast resources. I wish I had taken advantage of more of them.

It is regrettable for all of us that we were there before Yale admitted women, since their presence would have transformed our college experience.

In retrospect, I suffered from “future shock” at Yale but was unaware of that. Those were tumultuous years, with the Vietnam draft lurking and societal changes turning many of our assumptions upside down.

After Yale, I made some mistakes that were the result in part of having adopted many of the values of our parents’ generation while living in a changing world. That contributed to my thinking I should go into banking, which I shortly left, and to my making a marriage that failed, but produced our beloved Alexander. I know that I was not alone in changing careers or wives.

Like many of us, I have, for better and worse, designed my own career. After stints in banking and nonprofits, I worked in wealth management, and since the early 1980s have been a serial entrepreneur. Highlights: Caithness Energy, which developed the first private geothermal power plants in the US; two George Soros–funded companies in China, one of which, Hainan Airlines, went from start-up to the fourth largest airline in China; and Colchis Capital, a hedge fund that participated in “The Big Short” and later went long good AAA mortgage-backed securities.

Personally, I am in a happy place, and very lucky since the 1990s to be with Susan Hackley, who has always been lovely and delightful, a wonderful wife to me and mother of our three children (her two and my one, all now in their mid-30s). Susan is managing director of the program on negotiation at Harvard Law School, and in her scarce spare time, a filmmaker working on a documentary about the impact of our wars on the children and families of soldiers.

As for children, Alexander, my son with first wife Tanya, lives in Cambridge with his new (and expectant!) wife, Caroline Winter, and is a classical guitarist, writer and tutor. Zac, Susan’s first, was in the Marines and fought in Iraq, and is now an Alaska state trooper stationed in Fairbanks and a pilot. Daphne, our youngest, is married to Brandon Berger, and they live in Wellesley, both work in commercial real estate, and have two young children. Thankfully, all are healthy and happy.

Susan and I are most grateful for our many blessings, ever aware that there is much suffering and disappointment in this world. Susan lost her brother a few years ago, and earlier I lost two of my siblings in their 50s—so, as my dad used to say, “Smell the flowers!”

I would close with favorite sayings of my dear parents, touchstones of living for me:

Dad: “You reap what you sow.”

Mom: “Three things in human life are important: …be kind, …be kind, …be kind.”