Dave Meredith, Board Member
Dave Meredith believes people's personal values are made clear by their actions: Listen attentively, but watch their feet and you’ll see where they’re going. Actions speak louder than words. Of his own life he believes that the harder he worked, the luckier he got.
Dave, who gave up drinking alcohol in 1999, believes strongly that the “Promises” in the AA Big Book come true in abundance for those who follow the steps.
Dave describes his school years as those of a scholar-athlete. He arrived at Colgate University thinking he could carry on his full portfolio of high school successes. But he quickly saw running backs who were bigger and quicker, and sprinters and pole vaulters who were more gifted. So he focused his efforts instead on wrestling, which he undertook competitively at Colgate and the Universidad de Cuyo in Argentina.
After majoring in math and physics, Dave went on to business school at MIT where he earned a Ph.D. in economics and social psychology. The management consulting firm McKinsey & Company hired him as an Associate and in 1972 elected him a partner. He later left McKinsey and started, built, sold or took public a number of firms, real estate ventures and a variety of startups including Mid Pacific Airlines and General Database Technologies. Dave was a director, and for 10 years Chairman, of Packard BioSciences, a publicly traded nuclear instrument company.
An Ocean Reef Chaplain described Dave as a “human doing” blessed with high energy and a quick wit. After the death of his wife of 52 years, however, Dave realized it was time to become a human being, a helper, a coach. “Man plans, and God laughs.”
He wants his tombstone to read: "Here lies Dave, a real human being. He died sober and smiling."