Friday, October 31, 2014

J. Woodward “Woody” Redmond

Woody Redmond died October 7, 2014 in Bethesda of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. He was 93 years old. 
  



Woody was born on August 7th, 1921 in New York City -- the second child of Johnston Livingston Redmond and Katharine Sargeant Haven. He attended The Buckley School in New York, and then spent five years at St. Paul’s School, graduating in the class of 1940. 

He attended Harvard College for two years before enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps in August, 1942. After flight training, he was assigned to the 15th Air Force as a B-17 pilot. From bases in North Africa and Italy, he flew 50 combat missions, and then served, until the end of the war in Europe, as pilot for Major General Nathan Twining, Commander of the 15th Air Force. 

He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal with Four Oak Leaf Clusters. He was discharged from the Army in early 1946 at the rank of Captain, and in December 1946 he married Elizabeth "Liberty" Aldrich in New York City.

After a brief venture in magazine publishing, Woody was hired by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation as budget administrator for the Atomic Power Division in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which, at the time, was building the reactor for the first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus.  Woody played semi-professional ice hockey during his five years in Pittsburgh, and his life-long passion for golf also began there.

As the Nautilus reactor project neared completion, Woody began exploring other professional opportunities, and in late 1953, he joined the investment banking firm of Goldwyn & Olds in Washington, D.C. Goldwyn & Olds merged with Mackall & Coe in 1956 and Redmond served as general partner until 1958. From 1958 to 1960, he was manager of the Washington office of deVegh & Company.

In 1960, he founded J.W. Redmond & Company, an investment counseling firm in Washington, D.C.   

In 1990, Fiduciary Trust Company bought J.W. Redmond and Company, and Woody joined Fiduciary as a consultant and Senior Portfolio Manager, until 2004.  

Woody served on the Board of Trustees of the Brookings Institution from 1964 and was elected an honorary trustee in 1989, and served as such until 2008.

Woody was a member of the Metropolitan Club, the Chevy Chase Club, and the Burning Tree Club, along with the United States Seniors' Golf Association, the River Club in New York and the Tarratine Club in Islesboro, Maine. He was an avid golfer and continued to play the game into his nineties.


He is survived by his wife, Liberty, his sons, Roland, of Missoula, Montana, Winthrop, of Potomac, Maryland and John, of Bethesda, Maryland, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.