Roger Dale Bensen passed away peacefully surrounded by family in his Cos Cob home of 55 years on April 30. He continued telling stories and conducting phone calls with friends and family up until his final slumber.
With fortitude and tenacity, Roger navigated his life with great purpose. Born on August 13, 1935, Roger grew up in Warwick, NY with a motivation to do big things – and to do them well, with conviction and high expectations. At age 10, Roger spent a formative year during WWII living in Fairlington, VA, when his family moved to support his father, George C. Bensen. Watching his dad shift from owning and managing a five and dime store to playing a key role in the U.S. Navy’s Supply Corps wartime purchasing, gave Roger a model for patriotic service and lifetime pivots. He also met classmates and teachers who celebrated learning and international awareness, which bolstered Roger’s insatiable love of learning – and he sold a giant Christmas tree for $100, which opened his young eyes to the feeling of hitting the unexpected but spectacular business homerun.
Roger elevated his academics by attending The Taft School, where he honed his math and debate skills – and, importantly, discovered that he was a talented athlete. He then attended Dartmouth College, where he expected to be a math major and hoped to be an athlete; however, his callings included being a government/economics major, a Boston Globe sports stringer, and an NROTC midshipman.
First commissioned as a Naval Intelligence Officer at the Pentagon, Roger later achieved his goal of serving on a destroyer, as a CIC Officer on the USS Harwood. In addition to communications and logistics, key among Roger’s responsibilities was ship maneuvering, leading to experiences that have launched many stories detailing adventures in Newport, RI, the Caribbean, South America, and the Mediterranean. Though these Naval experiences would prove to be life-defining, Roger opted to pursue a different career path, one that brought him back to that possibility of the thrilling business homerun.
Introduced to the stock market by a friend and fellow Navy officer, Roger pursued his MBA from Harvard Business School, where by everyone’s account, he won the prize of his life, far more valuable than his degree. While unsuccessfully seeking financial aid, he met the Secretary to the Dean of Financial Aid, “the most beautiful woman I had ever seen,” as Roger often said. Weeks after his HBS graduation, Roger married Anne Weir Bensen in 1960.
The next 62 years have been a whirlwind of family, business, and travel. Roger and Anne moved to Brooklyn Heights, so they could both work on Wall Street. He began as a Senior Securities Analyst at A. C. Allyn & Co. until 1963, after which he worked at Glore Forgan, Wm. R. Staats Inc. until 1968 as a Vice President in the Investment Research Department. He worked for Shareholders Management as a Vice President for a year before leaving to create a company of his own by founding Number One Corporation, a portfolio management company that he captained until his last breath. Thematic throughout his career was a drive to root for the underdog stock, often applying to fledgling companies the same belief he had for himself: you can do more than you think you can. Also very important was Roger’s belief that women should have all the opportunities afforded to men – and, as such, he was one of the first people to hire women in his Wall Street Research Department and did so throughout his career.
With Anne at the helm on the home front, Roger traveled far and wide to make his business dealings happen, which in the 1980s expanded into oil and gas exploration. Initially investing in and drilling oil wells from Alaska to Louisiana through his company Roundel Petroleum Company, his true extension into this industry came when he created Onexxx Petroleum & Exploration Corporation in western PA, another company he led as President until his passing.
While building his businesses, Roger and Anne were also raising a family of four children, Tod, Brooke, Kim, and Britt. Roger and Anne taught their children to love learning, believe in themselves, enjoy traveling, and figure out what gifts they have to share with the world. They made higher education and annual family vacations to the Caribbean, Mexico, and Europe part of the family plan. Similarly foundational was the deep understanding of access to equal opportunity for boys and girls – he provided opportunities and expected academic, athletic, and business excellence just as much for his girls as he did for his boys. The love of learning was not contained to the classroom – incalculable books and lectures have been given to, trivia and sports games have been played with, and battlefields and oil rigs have been toured with his children.
Roger and Anne also nurtured a lifelong family passion for Golden Retrievers, which centered around a 50-year love story with Bos’n, Winston, Rocky, Thatcher, and Woody. Roger also cherished his many Dartmouth, Navy, HBS, and stock market friends – engaging with them in frequent social gatherings (including his infamous Groundhog Day parties) and playing basketball, tennis, squash and an unexpected stint with the local flag football team the Zig Zags in his younger years and sharing lengthy phone conversations and emails with them in his later years.
In addition to his wife, Roger had great admiration for those he called his heroes: his parents, his parents-in-law, Winston Churchill, Ted Williams, his four children and four grandchildren. Immensely proud of his children and grandchildren, he vigorously applauded their academic, athletic, and professional accomplishments – and learned to appreciate their joy and accomplishments in things less familiar to him.
Roger will be missed deeply by his wife, Anne; three surviving children and three children-in-law: Brooke Glidden (and John of Closter, NJ), Kim Crowell (and Brad of Dennis, MA), Britt Bensen (Redwood City, CA), and Fiona Bensen (Woodside, CA); four grandchildren: Johnny Glidden (Orlando, FL), Anna Crowell (Oberlin College), Catie Crowell (University of Vermont), and Will Crowell (Dennis, MA); and his sister, Sandy Calhoun (Alexandria, VA), and her three sons (Andrew, Rob, and Gordon Calhoun). Roger has gone home to rejoin his parents and brother (George, Florence, and Kendrick Bensen of Warwick, NY), parents-in-law (John and Minetta Weir of Mystic, CT), and his son (Tod Bensen of Woodside, CA).
Great love and a deep reservoir of memories root us as we say goodbye to our Roger, Dad, husband, brother, son, Grandpa, “stock picker,” oil and gas investor, patriot, voracious reader, sports and history trivia guru, and storyteller. Recently acknowledging the crowning achievements of raising their family while navigating an entrepreneurial business life, berthing securely at success, Roger said to his deepest love, Anne: “WE DID IT – and it was wonderful.” To you, Roger/Dad/Grandpa, we say, “Bye for now.”
A remembrance and reflection service will be held at the Elm Grove Cemetery Chapel in Mystic, CT on Saturday, June 25 at 10:30a.m. In lieu of flowers, donations would be appreciated at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation at jdrf.org or Yankee Golden Retriever Rescue at ygrr.org.
