Americo S. Ventura, founder of the Danbury-based Ventura Law, died on Sept. 1 at the age of 89.
Born in Danbury in 1927, he attended the Bordentown Military Institute in New Jersey and received a bachelor”™s degree in diplomatic and counselor practice from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. After serving in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, he studied at Boston University School of Law and graduated in 1957.
Ventura partnered with his former wife, Dianne Andersen, the first female lawyer in Danbury, to create Ventura & Ventura PC in 1957. The firm, which later became Ventura Law, now has four Connecticut offices plus one in New York City. In 1969, the firm hired Connecticut Court of Appeals Judge Thomas G. West, Danbury”™s first black attorney, as a partner.
In later years, Ventura founded a scholarship fund for benefit undergraduate and graduate college students called the Santana M. and Joaquim S. Ventura Portuguese History Award, which was named in honor of his Portuguese immigrant parents.
