In Memoriam: Philip (Phil) Young, 76
International Corporate Banker at Chase Manhattan
Born in Pittsfield, MA, Young graduated from Philips (Andover) Academy in 1965, earning a BA in Political Science at the University of Arizona, Tucson, where he was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate. He then attended Thunderbird Graduate School of International Management in Phoenix before beginning at Chase. He was the bank's General Manager in the Dominican Republic in the 1980s. He also served Chase in Hong Kong and in Mexico.
Moving to Santa Rosa in 1992, Phil became an independent Financial Advisor. He was a competitive tennis player and expert skier. Upon retiring, he continued to monitor the stock market and his personal investment portfolio.
He was predeceased by two sons, Jeffrey and Wendell, who died in 2011 and 2012, respectively, at ages 29 and 32.
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Cindy and Phil shared the news of his illness before Christmas; it was a shock for Dona and me. They composed an email from their second home in Costa Rica. The prognosis was not good. I replied immediately to their email, sharing my own experience and offering whatever help they might need. Thus began some telephone conversations plus email exchanges. Remarkably, as we might expect, Phil remained steadfast. Those childhood and teenage winters in the Berkshires forged his strength.
He talked about the outlook and his options and inquired about my experience. I answered his questions with brief replies and listened. What strength. What fortitude.
After completing the Credit Course in 1972, we all went in different directions, both in terms of departments and geography. I don’t recall if Phil spoke Spanish fluently, but he was off to Mexico City and the Caribbean. Soon he was conducting business negotiations in a second language – no easy task. Our careers were back on the same track in the early 1980s as Phil, Ed Cooper, Vic Cordell and I were in Asia. And our teachers from Global Credit I – Leon Desbrow, Roger Griffin, Peter Holzer and Tim McGinnis – were in leadership roles in Asia Pacific. Strong bonds.
We continued to keep in touch after we left Mother Chase. On a trip to Napa, Dona and I met with Cindy and Phil. Over dinner Phil lectured me on the finer points of Sonoma wines. He preferred that area to the more popular Napa productions. There was no doubt of his expertise as Cindy and Phil were investing in and advising The White Oaks Winery near their Santa Rosa home.
Dona and I send our prayers to Cindy and their family. And we recall with fondness your everlasting smiles and joie de vivre.
From Robert McDonald: Phil was my savior in the early days in Global Credit and we remained close for our years at Chase. Phil and Cindy helped us move some street furniture from Brooklyn to our first Manhattan apartment, up several flights. We celebrated this modest success thereafter. Patricia and I send our most sincere sympathies to Cindy and the family.
From Ed Cooper: Joe Murphy said it all. After Credit Training Phil and I went to different geographies. About 10 years later Phil moved to Asia and we met in Hong Kong. It was if we had last met the week before. Sending prayers to Cindy and their family.
At the end of that watershed summer, Phil would marry his sweetheart, Cindy, and I just started dating my future wife, Karin. Our collective paths crossed often over time, living simultaneously again in New York after our first overseas assignments, in Hong Kong, and finally in the greater Bay Area, where we got together with regularity over 30 years. We shared many sometimes raucous adventures, as well as the sadness of their tragically losing both of their sons at ages 29 and 32.
In the mid-nineties, Karin and I had two years of bi-coastal commute in which she was still working in D.C., while I had accepted a professorship in Monterey. Both years we met at Phil and Cindy’s in Santa Rosa to stay with them for Thanksgiving holidays. That began a decade-long tradition that was broken when they had to be away and then started traveling at Thanksgiving. The spirit of their hospitality, which was proffered many other times, lives on.
Phil loved nature and the outdoors. He and Cindy often vacationed and celebrated events at beaches and mountains. When visiting them, walks were de rigueur. He also played tennis avidly. I could compete with him only when he was nursing an injury. Like many of our generation, he later turned enthusiastically to pickleball, a racquet sport in which injuries have less ground to cover.
In his final days, Phil opted to take chemotherapy, not because of any irrational hope for recovery or clinging to a few extra days of life. Like many couples, he and Cindy had division of labor, and unsurprisingly, Phil was responsible for all things financial. Despite the sickness that the treatment produced, he felt he needed whatever extra time to be able to document everything that Cindy would need concerning their banking, investments, taxes, insurance and such to carry on.
At the very end, he insisted that Cindy get a puppy, though he’d resisted their having a dog for some years after their last golden retriever, Ginger, died. The puppy, named Philipa, gave Phil two days of comfort and Cindy a living and lively remembrance (and responsibility!).
Phil will be missed.
Phil wore a beard in 1981, which was highly unusual for a Country Manager at Chase, where I felt the need to report to work each day in a Brooks Brothers pinstripe suit, a highly starched button down collar shirt and Allen Edmonds Park Avenue lace-up shoes…all of this in the unrelenting Caribbean heat.