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Age:
54
Place of Residence:
Wethersfield, CT
Location on 9/11:
One WTC
Occupation:
Marsh & McLennan | Senior Vice President
Reflections:
The New York Times Portraits of Grief
The Richard M. Keane Foundation

Marsh Memorial Dedication

Biography:

Born in Boston, and raised in Pittsfield, MA, Dick was the eldest of eight children. He graduated from St. Anselm College, then worked for Travelers Insurance Company in Boston, MA. Since his draft lottery number was fifteen, he went to Marine Officer's Candidate School. He served at Camp Pendleton in California and in Iwakuni, Japan where he served as a courier to Viet Nam, and provided drug counseling for Marines prior to returning to the United States.

Dick and Judy (Murphy) Keane were married prior to OCS and had two children, Sean and Timothy, before Dick's discharge from the Marines. On return to the States, Dick attended Springfield College, where he received an MEd in Rehabilitation Counseling. For the next two years he was director of a program for the Retarded and Handicapped, then he returned to the Traveler's Insurance Company until 1994, when he joined Marsh McLennan Company. During these years, Dick also received an MBA from the University of Hartford, and three more sons were born, Daniel, Patrick and Matthew. Dick enjoyed spending time with all five of his boys, coaching baseball, soccer, and basketball, and spending time watching their sporting and scholastic activities. Dick's unique style of coaching included choosing teams based on compatible personalities rather than skill, and Dick made sure that all players had equal playing time. This meant that the teams rarely finished first, but they truly enjoyed playing the games.

Dick relished the time that he could spend in the garden, raising vegetables, building rock walls and tending the lawn and flowers. In the last few years he installed a naturalized fish pond, complete with plantings and fountain. He enjoyed entertaining friends and family, cooking and woodworking, and was an avid reader. Grandchildren Conor and Mckenzie were the joy of his life, as were his daughter-in-laws, Colleen and Heather. He spent many hours playing with his grandchildren in the yard, on the swing, on the bike or in the pool. A devout Catholic, Dick sang with the church choir, visited the sick of the parish, was a Eucharistic Minister and drove a group of blind women to church each week. Most would agree that Dick's sense of humor, his smile and his friendly "hello" were his signature. He would go out of his way to cheer someone who was having a difficult day, and always made a point of asking how everyone's family was. Dick was tragically lost in the World Trade Center terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, along with 291 other Marsh employees who were on the 99th and 100th floor of Tower I.