Michael Kimmel ’59

Mike died April 29, 2020, of complications from COVID-19 at Goddard House Assisted Living in Brookline, Mass. He was a retired senior appellate counsel with the U.S. Justice Department and 50-year Washington, D.C. resident. 

The son of a U.S. foreign service officer, Mike was born in Amarillo, Texas, attended Hutt Valley High School in New Zealand, then the Hun School from which he entered Princeton. He was a cox on the lightweight crew, Boudinot Collection guide at Firestone Library, and a member of Tower Club.

Post graduation he joined his family for an extended stay in Costa Rica, where his father was posted as deputy mission chief. Returning to the U.S. in 1961, he joined the Coast Guard. Assigned first to a buoy tender servicing navigational aids in New York harbor, then to an icebreaker on the upper Hudson River, he left the Coast Guard to obtain a law degree from George Washington University in 1967. 

Serving briefly at the FDIC as a bank regulator, he joined the Justice Department, from which he retired in 1988. He then took up part-time duties as a mediator in the D.C. Superior Court and, in his words from our 35th-reunion yearbook, “more demanding activities, e.g., ski slopes, sailboats, geographic expeditions, etc.”

Twice divorced, Mike is survived by two brothers; his son, Gregory; and three grandchildren. An avid recreational sailor, Mike was buried at sea.