Christopher Getman was a lifetime board member of the Center for Humans and Nature, serving on the board from the Center’s founding in 2003 to his death in 2023. He was a 1964 graduate of Yale University where he received a B.A. in English. In 1965 he received an M.A. in English from Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Following a five year stint teaching English and coaching at The Hotchkiss School, he returned to Yale as an Assistant Coach in football and baseball and as an Associate Director of the Yale Alumni Fund. In 1971 he joined White, Weld & Co. where he became a Vice President. White, Weld & Co. merged with Merrill Lynch in 1978 where Mr. Getman served as a first Vice President. He was with Merrill Lynch for 30 years. In January of 2002, he opened the New Haven office of Soundview Capital Management Corporation with his associate of fourteen years, Lynne Rosenfeld and assumed the role of President.
Additionally, Mr. Getman served as Senior Managing Director at Fairfield, Bush & Co., on the board of the Urban Resource Initiative, as Chairman of the Alexis deToqueville division of the United Way of Greater New Haven and of the Catherine Kennedy Foundation at Leeway, a facility for HIV patients. He also served as President of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and Mory’s, and on the boards of the Connecticut Fund for the Environment and The Hastings Center for Bioethical Research. He was co-Chairman of the 1994 New York/Connecticut World Cup Soccer Bid Committee and a Director of the International Special Olympics, in 1995. He was a founding Director of the New Haven Ravens AA Baseball Club. He is past President of the Yale Club of New Haven, the Yale Baseball Association and past Chairman of the Yale Co-op. In 1992, the Mayor of New Haven and the President of Yale presented Mr. Getman with an Elm/Ivy Award, and in 1999 he was awarded The Yale Medal.
