- Date Of Birth: June 18, 1943
- Date Of Death: September 1, 2022
- State: Connecticut
Bruce S. Kuryla of Milford, CT passed away on Sept. 1, 2022. Born June 18, 1943 to Henry and Doris (Nisbet) Kuryla in Hartford, CT, Bruce was a lifelong resident of Milford.
Bruce is survived by his wife of 27 years, Janet (Bourdeau); his four children: Bruce (Carol), Alison, Kevin (Jen) and William; he was “Papa Bruce” to his nine grandchildren Jessica, Bruce, Bryce, Kelly, Thomas, Kevin Jr., Liam, Aidan and Ciara; his brother Henry, his sister Kathy (Francis), stepbrothers Michael and Fritz Warnstedt; his stepchildren: Eric (Karin) Swanson, Kristen (Chris) DeMaio, David Swanson and grandchildren: Lauren and Jenna Swanson, Jillian, Carly, and Ava DeMaio, Finn and Owen Swanson.
He was an avid sportsman, outdoorsman and supporter of all things sailing. As a Boy Scout, he attended Camp Sequassen in the summers and a European Jamboree in 1957, earning the highest distinction of Eagle Scout. As a father, he was an avid co-designer of high-tech Boy Scout pinewood derby cars and science fair projects. At Christmas he helped all the grandchildren build their Lego or Playmobile toys.
A graduate of Milford High School Class of 1961, he excelled at athletics: track, basketball, an All-State athlete in football, and swimming with records in the breaststroke. He attended the Hopkins School in New Haven in 1962 on a scholarship where he played football before starting a family with his former wife, Gail (Patry).
With a keen engineering and creative mind, Bruce was driven, ambitious, and entrepreneurial throughout his career. He began working at Avco; then at his father’s company Connecticut Tool Design; followed by his own company based on novel hotel telephone and switching system design for which he was granted a patent (with his young children thrilled to be part of the production line). Bruce founded Northeastern Telephone, one of the first independent telephone companies in the country. For over seven years, he pursued and won a landmark anti-trust case against the Bell System (which was later overturned on appeal by a large group of Bell System attorneys and the case was referenced in some college economics classes). Bruce named his sailboat “PABX” (“private automatic branch exchange”: an automatic telephone switching system) to promote conversation about his company. Bruce owned and operated Port Milford for nearly 40 years before his retirement to his porch overlooking Long Island Sound, where Janet and he hosted his annual 4th of July parties.
Bruce’s great passion was sailboat racing. He competed throughout the Northeast and Florida including the Southern Ocean Racing Circuit. He was an outstanding navigator and there was nothing he enjoyed more than winning races on Defiant and Secret alongside his son, Bruce, (referred to as B1 & B2 respectively). Together with their friends/crew, they won three U.S. Offshore Championships in Annapolis, eleven Eastern Connecticut Overall Championships and numerous other races. Bruce was the Milford Harbormaster from 2012 to present; a member of Milford Yacht Club since childhood, serving as Rear Commodore, Director, Club Historian; an active member of Windjammers Sailing Club and a Director of the Milford Sailing Foundation.
