Richard B. Collins ’64

    Dick passed away of complications from ALS May 13, 2023, in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. He came to Princeton from Rocky River High School in Cleveland, where he served as student government chair and excelled in athletics.

At Princeton, Dick majored in economics, was in Army ROTC, ate at Cannon, and rowed heavyweight crew freshman year. After graduation he served three years as an Army intelligence officer, mostly in Germany, and was promoted to captain. He obtained a Harvard MBA in 1969 and began a 45-year career in banking with the First National Bank of Chicago, where he met Judy; they married in June 1971.

Dick served in senior executive positions in several regional banks in Ohio and then Massachusetts, where he became president of United Cooperative Bank in West Springfield in 2001. In his 14 years of leadership, he took United public and led its growth into a significant regional bank in central Massachusetts and northern Connecticut with $2.4 billion in assets.

Following retirement in 2014, Dick and Judy moved to Palm Beach Gardens. Dick actively participated in class and University affairs, serving as our class agent for five years and on Princeton’s National Schools Committee.

The class extends its condolences to Judy; children Peter and Katie ’02; Dick’s brother John ’55; daughter-in-law Laura Hardman Collins ’99, and their families. Son John ’99 died in 2009.