Simon Tracey Curtis

Simon was born in London, England. At age nine, his parents sold their home, couldn’t find a new one, and ended up living on their small boat for the next two years. He loved this so much that at thirteen he started at a maritime school and by sixteen, he was an apprentice on merchant cargo ships, sailing around the world. Over the next twenty years he worked his way up to Captain of these ships and found his passion in being on the water and traveling the world. With his first wife, Caroline, he had two wonderful boys, Benjamin and Matthew.

In 1987, he came ashore to start a new life in America, moving to Connecticut to work for Westport Navigation, specializing in shipping operations. Even though he gave up the water, he was still in the industry that he loved. As the shipping business declined, the company pivoted to a new focus on catering with two newly purchased wedding venues, and Simon became a self-taught manager, learning about everything from real estate (helping to build several new facilities from the ground up), to accounting, to sales, to marketing, to finance, to hiring staff and HR issues. No one would ever know that this was not his life-long career. He was so interested in all that he had learned, that even after retiring, he continued to help some of the companies that he worked for.

In 1995, Simon began training a new employee at Westport Navigation, Kiki Cahn.

After several months, they started dating, and in a sliding door moment, they realized that in October 1987, Simon moved from London to Connecticut, and within a week of that date, Kiki moved from New York to Switzerland and eventually to London. After eight years in Europe, Kiki ended up in the same office as Simon, and the rest was history. They were married in 1997 and 3 years later Daniel was born and the family of 5 was complete.

Simon had many other passions in life, of which the most important to him was staying active. Whether it was running, riding his bike, hiking, or just being outdoors, he was always doing something. Simon also inherited a passion for book collecting from his father, with his collection of primarily maritime nonfiction growing to over 12,000 books. His love of boating and being on the water continued well past his career days, and after the move to Maryland, he joined a boat club and spent multiple days a week exploring the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay areas.

Above all, Simon was devoted to his family, nothing meant more to him. He was also an incredibly hard worker, who was always grounded and calm, never met a problem that he couldn’t find a way to solve, and was willing to help anyone and everyone with anything they needed. Kiki always called him her “rock,” and he will be greatly missed.

He is survived by his brother Andy Curtis and his wife Pat, his sons Benjamin (Kinga), Matthew (Lauren), Daniel, his grandchildren Mia, Oliver, Amelia and Theo, and his wife Kiki Cahn.

A service will be held at the Gardens of Remembrance on June 8th at 1pm.