Stuart Wing Ray

Non sibi (not for self) is the motto of Phillips Exeter Academy. Stuart Wing Ray, of Jupiter Island, Florida, and Dark Harbor, Maine, who died on February 25, 2019, from complications from cancer, was graduated from Exeter in 1962, and tried to follow this ethic throughout his life.

Stuart was born August 22, 1944, in New York City, to Kenneth Ray, a lawyer and chemical engineer, and Deborah Ray, a model and, in later years, a college professor. He grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut. In 1965, upon his graduation from Harvard College, he joined the U.S. Army, serving as an intelligence officer first in Europe, then Vietnam, where he earned a bronze star.

After he returned from Vietnam he entered Harvard Business School, and received an MBA in 1970. That same year he married Robin Tompkins. After graduation, Stuart worked as a securities analyst at State Street Research and Management Company, Boston, until 1977. He then moved to Washington D.C., where he joined Presidents Carter’s newly formed Department of Energy.

The family moved again in 1980 to Nassau in The Bahamas, where Stuart headed the YOM Oil Company. In 1982, the family moved to Manhattan where Stuart became a founding member of James D. Wolfensohn Incorporated, a newly formed investment banking firm. In 1996, Wolfensohn merged with Banker’s Trust, and Stuart moved to Houston, Texas, to manage that company’s Houston Office.

In 2000, Stuart officially retired and returned to Nassau. There, in spite of his new status as a man of leisure, he continued to work at close to his old pace, holding directorships at a number of public and private companies, including Sonenshine Partners, a newly formed investment banking boutique. With his longtime friend Philip Eisenberg, he helped to form Urban American Housing, a real estate company that provides work force housing in the New York metropolitan area.

While in Nassau, he served as head of the Lyford Cay Foundation, where he helped develop a number of innovative scholarship programs for Bahamians, and was instrumental in the rehabilitation and expansion of the Library at the College of The Bahamas. In addition to his charitable activities in The Bahamas, Stuart was President Emeritus of Christ Church, Dark Harbor, Maine.

Stuart was active in a number of Clubs, including the Owl Club at Harvard; The Harvard Club of New York City; the Somerset Club, Boston; the Metropolitan Club, New York; the Tarratine Club, Dark Harbor, Maine; the Lyford Cay Club, Nassau; and the Jupiter Island Club, Florida.

In addition to his spouse, Robin, he leaves a sister, Eloise Ray Johnson, two children, Christie and Oliver; and three grandchildren, Buzby and Huxley Robb and Olivia Ray.

There will be a celebration of life at 4:00pm on Tuesday, March 26th, Christ Memorial Chapel, 52 South Beach Road, Hobe Sound, Florida, 33455.

In lieu of flowers, contributions in Stuart’s name may be made to the Jupiter Medical Center Foundation, 1210 South Old Dixie Highway, Jupiter, Florida 33455 (jmcfoundation.org), or, to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, 450 Brookline Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215 (danafarber.jimmyfund.org).