From the Albeck Family:

To tell the story of our father, is to tell the story of his forefathers - from whom he took so much inspiration throughout his life, this is why we have aptly begun the story of his life, with his Grandfather.

Hans Albeck is named for his paternal grandfather, Johannes.   After leaving his native Denmark in 1914, Johannes senior became the General Manager of a Danish Shipping Company in Vladivostok where he met and married a White Russian Widow named Anna, who had fled the revolution with her mother and daughter.  Anna had joined the foreigners’ tennis club, which Johannes senior was president of, and as the legend goes, she was quite bad at tennis and many of the other members reported being pelted with balls when playing on adjacent courts.  Johannes offered to do the gallant thing and take her on long walks in the woods to divert her attention off the court - romance blossomed.  During this time Johannes was appointed to the International Red Cross Siberian Famine Relief Committee where he became friendly with Admiral Gleaves, the commander of the US Fleet, and his Marine Corps aide, Major Moriarty.  When the revolution reached Vladivostok Johannes and his wife Anna, his mother-in-law Cristina and step-daughter Vera, these American naval connections enabled them to be evacuated by US Troopship to Yokohama, Japan, where the young family sought to establish a new life.  Via a connection Johannes made through his Red Cross volunteer work, he was recommended for a finance role for United Artists where he quickly was promoted and assumed the role of General Manager for all of Asia. Later, Johannes would regale his grandson Hans with stories of his travel accompanying Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore and Charlie Chaplin to exotic locations like Afghanistan, Kashmir and Siam where he would promote their films and managed relationships to local presenters.
 
Hans’ father, Andy Albeck, spent his formative years in Yokohama, attending a Jesuit School called St. Joseph’s College on the Bluff.  After graduation he accepted a role at Columbia in distribution and traveled to the Dutch East Indies where he met and married the daughter of a Dutch Naval Captain, Nelly Stal.  The following year however, the Japanese invaded and threw life into turmoil.  Nelly’s father was transported to a POW camp in Japan for officers and her mother and teenage siblings were all interned in local POW camps where conditions were incredibly difficult.  Andy had been granted quasi- diplomatic status as the honorary Danish counsel in Surabaya which allowed him and Nelly to remain under house arrest, and it was during this period that Johannes was born in 1945.
 
In this harrowing time there were several instances when Andy was out collecting food for his family and he was arrested by Indonesian Secret Service and put on a truck, likely en route to shooting squads.  Andy was only saved because of his ability to communicate in his native Japanese with the Japanese officers who would intervene on his behalf.  As there were few allied forces in the islands hostilities continued long after the war ended and in many areas, worsened.  Nelly, Andy and toddler Hans were evacuated to Singapore, from where they were eventually repatriated to Johannes senior’s home in Yokohama, named “Flowerland”.  The house had been claimed by the American forces under MacArthur but Johannes senior was able to deftly arrange its return by connecting with Commander Moriarty, then head of the marines in Japan, who he had first met back in Vladivostok all those years earlier. 
 
Young Hans lived at Flowerland with his parents and grandparents for two years, learning to speak English under the American occupation.  During this time his grandfather was instrumental in reopening the Yokohama Country and Athletic Club, a beloved retreat for expats in Yokohama.  In the 1960’s the Todd family lived in Yokohama for four years while Bill Todd completed two tours of Vietnam, and as coincidence would have it, their then fourteen year old daughter Laura competed in the pool at the YCAC, including in the Junior Olympics in 1964. Hans and Laura would of course not meet until many years later on the other side of the world and didn’t uncover this coincidence until their second date.

In 1949 Andy Albeck took a role with Eagle Lion films (later purchased by United Aritsts which Andy would go on to become CEO of)  in New York, and the young family moved across the globe to Glen Oaks Village in Queens NY.  A few years later when Nelly and Andy divorced, Nelly, Hans and his sister moved back to Nelly’s native Holland to live with her family in the Hague where they remained for a little over a year.  Then at the suggestion of Nelly’s beloved older sister Jenny Bradley, Nelly moved the family to Oakland California.  The Bradley’s would be a surrogate family to Hans, and throughout his life he referred to their sons Bruce and Paul as his little brothers.  

In California Hans placed into Oakland High School at thirteen and distinguished himself as an actor taking the lead in several school plays such as the “Diary of Anne Frank”, where he played Peter. He graduated high school at sixteen and started Cal Berkeley immediately after.  In his Sophomore year Hans pledged Phi Delta Theta which immediately became the heart and soul of his college experience.  John Lovewell, Hans’ devoted friend, and fraternity brother remembered him as such: 

Naval Career

In 1966 after graduating Berkeley Hans matriculated at Fordham Law school, whereupon he was promptly drafted to Vietnam.  Owing to relationships forged by his Dutch navy family with American navy officers in the aftermath of the war, Hans was able to secure the necessary recommendations and matriculated at the Officer Candidate School in Rhode Island, beginning his military career in 1968.
 
Hans then joined The Supply Corps and notable tours included a year in a listening station in the Turks and Caicos islands, and a role as chief of staff to Admiral Forrest.  It was during his time on duty in Little Creek, Virginia, that Hans offhandedly asked his civilian supplier Bud if he knew any nice young women he could take out on a date while in town.  Bud turned to his secretary and said “Mary Lou, your daughter is home from Clemson and new in town, right?” and thus Laura and Hans’ first date was set and took place in the basement bar of the Little Creek Officers Club with a precursor to karaoke -  a piano man, and song books.  As mentioned above, it was not until their second date that they discovered that they had both grown up in Yokohama just streets away from one another.  

Wharton Graduate School & Olympus

Admiral Forrest was instrumental in pressing Hans to consider pursuing an MBA (himself a Stanford MBA), and in 1972 Hans received an honorable discharge and accepted a place at Wharton and moved to Philadelphia.  At Wharton Hans was appointed a Teaching Assistant for the Multinational Enterprise Unit and became active in the Wharton Graduate Student Association (WGA) and was subsequently elected president.
 
Not content to have his formal post be his only contribution to the school, Hans forged a close relationship with several other international students who felt there was a need to create an international network from the friendship and contacts made at Wharton.  As a result, Hans along with Jeff Bell, Michel Carite, Michael Fisher, Charlie Lichtman, Felipe Oriol and David Wertheim formed Olympus with the mission of uniting the international student community in Wharton and improving the overall school.  As Charlie Lichtman recalled:

In addition to Hans' business and organizational skills, Hans cared deeply about people. He was always ready to lend a helping hand to anyone in need. He was a great counselor and his advice has helped many.

Their goal to support a lifetime association of friends, who share an international orientation and who exemplify leadership, lives on today and one of the most significant accomplishments - the Olympus Symposium, is being hosted for its 43rd year in October 2016.
 
During his summer internship between his first and second years at Wharton at DuPont, Hans’ beloved mother Nelly was stricken with an aneurism and fell into a coma.  Hans immediately flew to be by her side and waited for several weeks before it was clear she would never recover and she passed away.  Hans had been incredibly close with his mother his entire life, especially during the period following his parents divorce.  Hans spoke of his mother lovingly throughout his life and even though she didn’t live to even attend his wedding, made sure that all of his children knew of her and that she was a presence in their lives. Last October Hans took his children and granddaughter Anna Kristine to California on the train and visited Nelly’s grave in Oakland.  

Marriage & International Career

Following graduation, Hans proposed to Laura and they were married December of 1974 in the Officers’ Club at Little Creek.  Hans accepted his role at First National Bank of New York (a precursor to Citibank) and they moved to New York to settle into an 18 month rotation.  However, under a year later he was offered a the role of Country Financial Controller at the new Milan office.  So from 1975-77 he and Laura lived in Milan and Laura taught at the American School in Milan.

In 1977 Hans was appointed to the role of branch manager to the new branch in Antwerp, where there his first child Alison was born and Laura taught at the International School.  Just 18 months later Johannes accepted a role as Country Head of Corporate Banking in Copenhagen so he could learn more about his Albeck family which owing to his parents divorce, he never really knew of. Fittingly, his son Andreas, named for Johanne’s father, was born on this tour in Copenhagen.  It was during this time that Hans and Laura befriended many extended members of the Albeck clan, notably cousins Peter and Nina Albeck who they remain close with today.  

During his time in Europe Hans made a concerted effort to create a relationship with his father Andy and stepmother Lotte, returning to America every summer with the ever growing number of grandchildren in tow, establishing a tradition where the family would spend two weeks with the Albeck grandparents in New Jersey followed by five weeks in Virginia with the Todd family (Hans of course would deposit the family in Virginia and then return to work in New York or London till the end of the summer).  

After several years of summers at the Albeck Christmas Tree Farm in Lafayette Township NJ, Andy decided the farm was not child friendly enough and bought a Victorian house on Lake Hopatcong named “Greyrock” for the large rocks which marked the big hill leading down from the main house to the boat house.  The family spent twenty happy, fun-filled summers diving off the boat house, cooking hibachi on the porch, being regaled with dinner time performances by the children, and tubing around the lake behind Grandpa Andy at the wheel of his speedboat.  As a footnote Hopatcong is just 20 miles from Beaver Lake where Hans enjoyed three special summers – two visiting Josh and Alison as they rented there, and the last year in the new family house –  which has been aptly christened “Greyrock”.
 
From 1983 to 1992 the family lived in London as Hans took on a succession of more senior management roles at Citibank.  In this time he was Chief of Staff to the head of the Asset Backed Lending Division and then went on to bank the LBO for a Wharton friend who bought out Cadburys Schewpps, at the time the largest deal of its kind.  Mike Jensen, Hans’ boss for four years in Citibank recalled “when something difficult, and not ‘fun,’ needed to be done, Hans was the man to cajole everyone on the team to do it,do it right and always do it.  He brought  gravity and maturity mixed, just occasionally, with a twinkle of his eye and sly smile that were always persuasive.  He was the ‘Gorilla Glue’ that kept the group effort tightly together.”

During this time the family expanded with the arrival of William and Elisabeth and lived in a wonderful turn-of-the-century flat in the center of Kensington with a 2.5 acre enclosed garden in the back where the children could play happily for hours till the sunset.  Laura was deftly running an incredibly hectic household and at one point had four children under thirteen all in different private schools across the city. 

As a family they spent happy weekends at the Hurlingham Club and the Holland Park Adventure Playground, swimming at the Kensington Close Hotel, taking half term trips to Center Parks in Nottingham Forrest, Easter ski trips to Zermatt and Grindelwald and treks back to Denmark and Holland to stay connected with beloved Stal and Albeck families.  

It was during this happy busy time that the Albecks met the Holtan family when their sons attended Montessori school together.  The Holtans were in the midst of an international assignment which would later take them to Taiwan but they were originally from Larchmont, NY.  One summer, while working out of the New York Citibank office while his family was at Greyrock in New Jersey, Hans went to visit the Holtans in Larchmont.  It was a particularly gorgeous summer day and it happened to be Race Week at Larchmont Yacht Club so as Hans turned down Larchmont Avenue he was greeted with bunting and the hub of festivities – and was bit with the American suburban dream that he had never quite experienced firsthand himself. So it was no surprise that when in 1992 Hans accepted a new role at Citibank in New York, that he and Laura decided to relocate the family of six to Larchmont.
 
Upon returning to the US, Hans was invited to join the Board of the New York Wharton Club, which was experiencing some financial difficulties.  Hans served as Chair from 1994 until 2000.  During this time Hans led an effort to cut expenses and get the club to be self sustaining.  At Hans’ belated 70th birthday party in October, fellow board member from that period Dana Michael, himself still a WCNY board member, attributed this turn around to Hans’ leadership and shared that at the most recent board meeting the board had popped champagne to celebrate crossing the $1MM mark in their endowment.  In 1998 Hans Co-Chaired the class of 1974’s 25th Reunion and in 1999 the Alumni Club of NY named him “Alumnus of the Year”.

During the rest of his career Hans took on more and more senior roles at respected global banks.  He was Group Credit Officer at Citigroup, Chief Credit Officer at Deutsche Bank and Head of Counterparty Risk and Global Credit Policy.  He spent five years at BayernLB heading their US office as a member of Global Credit Committee and restructured their entire operation, executing a deft turn around.  In the final years of his career Hans consulted on a variety of Private Equity Real Estate transactions and corporate acquisition targets. He also held a role on the Board of Directors for the Risk Management Association and the Foreign Bank Credit Policy Roundtable and volunteer posts with the Foreign Policy Association.

Retirement

In 2010, following the sudden death of his beloved father, Hans turned much of his time to managing the care for his stepmother Lotte who has progressed Alzheimer's, and managing and restoring family artifacts and heirlooms from which he derived great pleasure.

As a family man Hans was incredibly devoted and caring.  Though his travel and work demands were aggressive his family was always his priority.  He took his four children to visit more than 50 college and university campuses to ensure that they found the right one for them. He also supported his children’s endeavors outside of anything that he had experienced with both his daughters’ pursuits in the arts.  

Hans made it a priority to take his family around the world - bringing them on incredible trips to Russia and  Australia among other exotic destinations.  The most memorable trip of all was a 1999 trip to Yokohama Japan where Laura and Hans had never previously been together.  On this trip Hans took his family to his childhood home Flowerland, on a tour of St. Joseph’s College, to meet older members of the YCAC who remembered Johannes Senior, to visit Laura’s teenage home and to the grave of his Great Grandmother Cristina, in the foreigners cemetery.  The family stopped in Maui on the way home for the trip of a lifetime at the Grand Wailea. 

In 2005, he gave away his daughter Alison at a glorious wedding at Larchmont Yacht Club, where she married Josh Lindland.  Alison and Josh gave Hans and Laura two granddaughters - Anna Kristine and Charlotte, both named for Albeck matriarchs, which pleased Hans greatly.  Hans was a devoted and patient “Opa” to both of them, spending time with them during the summer at Beaver Lake, swimming with them in the pool at LYC and most memorably taking them to Disneyworld in January of 2015.

In October 2015 Hans was celebrated at a belated 70th birthday party at Larchmont Yacht Club by almost 80 friends and family members who came from across the world to toast him.  In August 2016, he was thrilled to host the wedding of his youngest daughter Elisabeth to Neil Gasparka in a jubilant lakeside event at the new “Greyrock” that he purchased as a family base just the prior year.   

Several years ago Alison sent an email to her newborn daughter Anna Kristine introducing her to her “Opa”, a letter that Josh read at Hans’ 70th birthday party.  In response Hans replied  - “In writing about our family saga, you need to give full credit to your mother, Laura, my wife of 37 years, who brought you into this world. My career involved family moves between 5 countries. Laura was clever and strong enough to establish our family residences in each and then care for each of you, nurse you through various illnesses and guide you through your childhood and college years.” Hans and Laura were married for 42 years last January.

He is remembered as a kind and loving father and husband, loyal and devoted friend and passionate and effective leader to the communities and organizations that he was a part of.  He touched the lives of all those he knew and made a outsized impact on the world.  He is dearly loved and will be forever in the hearts of his family and friends.