When the weekend arrives, Andrew M. Keller is out on Long Island Sound in a heartbeat.
“With the price of gas, you”™ve got to love sailing.”
Keller had the good fortune of finding what he loved early in life. Although he did sail as a child his first love was medicine. Today he is chief of cardiology at Danbury Hospital.
College, medical school and a cardiology fellowship turned him into a landlubber.
Keller”™s first position was in the cardiology department at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.
Keller spent five years at Columbia where he took care of patients and was actively involved in cardiovascular research, developing his own laboratory studying cardiac physiology.
“We had two children in succession. We were living very close to the city. My wife, Robin, was working in what”™s now the Deutsche Bank building and we looked at ourselves and said, ”˜What are we doing, is this how we want to raise our kids?”™ We made the decision that our kids were really important to us so we both relocated and both quit our jobs.”
The couple moved to Ridgefield and Keller took a position at Danbury Hospital. The hospital was a perfect fit.
The family spent their free time on Long Beach Island in New Jersey.
“We had always gone down there and finally in 1990 we bought our own house.”
After enjoying the beach bum scene for his first few seasons Keller became jaded and searched for something to occupy his time.
“I said you know this is really boring hanging out on the beach. It”™s nice, but what to do? It”™s not my style.”
He traveled to the other side of Long Beach Island to Manahawkin Bay and spent his first summer relearning sailing and renting all types of sailboats. He finally settled and bought a catamaran.
“I picked catamarans because they”™re unbelievably fast boats and challenging.”
After simple sailing, Keller decided to see where he stood and became involved in racing.
Three years ago he raced nationally at the National Hobie Tournament.
“For someone who hadn”™t sailed in so long I thought that was a milestone.”
He continued to evolve his sailing standards and soon after bought a Laser, a smaller faster racing sailboat that would only allow a single sailor.
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Keller soon joined a fleet at Cedar Point Yacht Club in Westport.
Cedar Point has three sailors that went to the Olympic trials this past year, Keller said. “To be in the middle of the pack, in that group, I thought I was pretty good.”
Keller”™s three children also became deeply involved in the sport with two sailing for their respective colleges.
“My son sails for Salve Regina (University) and my daughter sails for Boston College and are up to win the national championship going on right now,” Keller said. “I”™m really proud not only do I enjoy sailing but to be able to see my kids go out and actually compete nationally is amazing.”
Keller says it”™s much different than any other individual sport.
“It”™s about really being an individual and competing by yourself against others, that to me is the real challenge of it. When you think about sailing it involves at least five different things you need to consider during a race. One is boat to boat competition, two is the mind game, three the rules, four aerodynamics and five fluid dynamics. It”™s fun and it takes your mind off of work, when I get out there racing I don”™t think about anything else except what”™s going on in the water. It”™s a great detractor.”
In the last five years, Keller has led the charge in Danbury to equip the hospital with the staff and facilities to become a destination for open heart surgery and angioplasty.
“That was a new challenge for me. It was a travesty that we didn”™t have these services. We petitioned the state and it was a monumental effort that I refuse to take full credit for.”
Keller was able to develop the program and change the face of cardiology in the hospital from five years ago and add one and a half times the amount of cardiovascular surgeons on staff.
“At the end of last year we received our first scoring system and achieved a five-star rating score which had never been achieved in a hospital that hadn”™t had open heart surgery in place for twenty years. It”™s a true measure of success to be able to do that in a brand new program. Those scores are based on death rate and there”™s nothing more meaningful than that. Four years ago no one knew to come to Danbury for surgery and angioplasty. We”™ve brought Ivy League traditions up here so they don”™t have to go to the Ivy Leagues. Between work and sailing it all leaves me pretty fulfilled.”
Now that the summer is in full swing, you can catch Keller spending his weekends in Westport”™s harbor, sailing his Laser and working on his time.
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