Michael J. Hegarty
Michael John Hegarty, a former president and chief executive officer of Flushing Savings Bank who had houses in Montauk and Glen Head, died on Jan. 29 at home in Glen Head. He was 77 and had Parkinson’s disease, his family said.
He had first come to Montauk in the 1970s as a certified public accountant for the Deep Sea Club. Because of a love of fishing, he and his wife took to the area right away, his family said, first staying with friends.
By the late 1970s he and his wife, the late Mary Ellen Hegarty, bought a house on North Farragut Road in Montauk. The place was always filled with family, friends, holiday parties, and amazing fishing stories, his daughter, Ellen McDonald of East Hampton, said.
Mr. Hegarty was born on May 27, 1939, in the Bronx to Michael John Hegarty and the former Katherine Costello. He attended Manhattan Prep high school.
His was a grassroots success story, Ms. McDonald said. As a boy he made deliveries for a dry-cleaner and later worked as a clerk at a Peter Reeves grocery store.
He sold hot dogs, ice cream, and beer at Yankee Stadium, was a night porter for The New York Daily News, and made deliveries for a Coca-Cola distributor. With savings from these jobs and others, he was able to pay his own way through Manhattan College. His first job after graduation was at Peat, Marwick, Mitchell, and Co. in New York City.
From the Deep Sea Club and Peat, Marwick, Mr. Hegarty moved on to EDO Corporation, a defense contractor in College Point, Queens, where he held posts including vice president of finance, corporate secretary, treasurer, and chairman of the audit committee. He went on to join Flushing Savings Bank, working as an executive vice president, corporate secretary, and chief operating officer before becoming its president and C.E.O. He retired in 2005.
He married the former Mary Ellen Duggan on Jan. 23, 1963. Ms. Hegarty died in 2015.
Mr. Hegarty spent six seasons as a Little League coach, and later was president of the Glen Head-Glenwood Landing Little League. He was a committee chairman of the Glenwood Landing Boy Scouts and was a president of the Boy Scouts of America’s Nassau County Chapter. He received the Scouts’ Theodore Roosevelt Award and its Silver Beaver Award, among the organization’s highest honors.
In addition to Ms. McDonald, he is survived by two sons, Michael Hegarty of Westbury and Brian Hegarty of Goldens Bridge, N.Y., and 10 grandchildren. Two brothers, William Hegarty of Troy, N.Y., and John Hegarty of Scarsdale, N.Y., survive as well.
He attended services at St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church in Montauk and St. Boniface Martyr Church in Sea Cliff, where a Mass for Mr. Hegarty was celebrated on Jan. 31. He was buried at Locust Valley Cemetery.
Memorial donations have been suggested to gofundme.com/savesullyslifeplease, for Sully Forbes, a 7-month-old boy with a rare cancer whose father, Frank Forbes, was a family friend who grew up in Montauk and Glen Head, or to the National Parkinson Foundation, 200 Southeast First Street, Suite 800, Miami 33131, also at parkinson.org.
Ms. McDonald said that her father’s many stories and one-liner jokes will never be forgotten.