Obituary: David Wicks
Cable television pioneer and venture capitalist David Wicks, who loved his Shelter Island life, passed away on December 30, 2011 at NYU Medical Center in New York surrounded by his family. He was 70.
Born May 17, 1941 in Newton, Massachusetts, he graduated in 1963 from Trinity College, where he co-founded the Trinity College Rowing Association.
After graduating from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, David began his career in New York as an investment banker with A.G. Becker. During the 1970s, he developed financing models for the cable industry for which he received the Vanguard Award from the National Cable Television Association and was named an “Industry Pioneer.”
After establishing himself in venture capital, he moved in 1983 to Houston, Texas, where he merged his financial and business expertise with his long-standing interests in technology and space. He returned to New York in 1996 as vice president of the New Media Division for Cablevision Systems Corporation.
Having fallen in love with the coast of Maine in his boyhood, David remained a lover of the sea and the natural world. He enjoyed summers in Christmas Cove, Maine with his wife Joan and their daughters Perrin and Sara when they were young. When David and Joan returned from Texas to the East Coast in the mid-90s and discovered Shelter Island, they knew they were home. They built a house in Hay Beach where they gathered frequently in all seasons with their family.
David cherished the natural beauty and rhythms of Shelter Island life, the authenticity of its community and the Union Chapel, where he served as a trustee. Life on the water was central to his summer days, primarily sailing on his Herreshoff 12½ or exploring on his Grady White. He was an enthusiastic member of the Shelter Island Yacht Club.
In the later years of his professional life, David founded the Alwyn Group LLC, consulted to entrepreneurs and business leaders in the U.S. and Chile and taught at the graduate level at Columbia University as an adjunct professor. He chaired the board of directors of Cable Positive and served on numerous boards, most recently the Board of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York and the Mayor’s Committee on Technology in Government.
David had an insatiable interest in the world. He was a voracious reader of history, biography, fiction, poetry and current events. He was a natural cook; a fierce card player; an amateur magician; and a gentle, patient and caring friend and mentor to many.
In addition to his wife and his daughters, he is survived by sons-in-law John Butterworth and Jim Malone, granddaughters Lila and Eva, sister Elizabeth Wicks and brother John Wicks.
A memorial service will be held at the Union Chapel later in the year. A service was held on January 11, 2012 at the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be sent to the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, Trinity College Rowing and Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.
