William McIntosh Heyn, 81

William McIntosh Heyn, Bill, a New Canaan resident for 47 years, passed away peacefully on February 18, 2024.

William McIntosh Heyn

The eldest son of William Carveth and Jean McIntosh Heyn, he was born on September 14, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He graduated from The Choate School in 1960, Stanford University in 1964 and Northwestern Kellogg Graduate School of Management in 1966 where he met his eventual bride, Jodie, who was an undergraduate at Northwestern. Upon receiving his MBA, he volunteered for service, completed Naval Officer Candidate School and deployed to Vietnam as a Gunnery Officer on the destroyer U.S.S. John A. Bole. While on this tour, his destroyer was temporarily diverted to North Korea as part of the response to the Pueblo Incident. He deployed for a second tour as the Executive Officer of the landing ship U.S.S. Iredell County where he served on the Mekong Delta before retiring from active duty as a lieutenant in 1969.

Upon his return to civilian life, he married Joan Burris Heyn, Jodie, and settled in Chicago, then Evanston and then Winnetka, Illinois where he worked for Buildex, a division of ITW. In 1978 he and Jodie moved their three children to New Canaan, Connecticut where they, shortly after, welcomed their fourth child. There he worked for Continental Can Company in Stamford before he left to found his own plastic container start-up company, Polystar Packaging, where he won three DuPont Package of the Year Awards and received numerous patents relating to plastic packaging and methods of manufacture. He sold Polystar to Silgan Holdings in 1996 and continued his work there. Upon his retirement, he embarked on a second career as an author, penning three novels about World War II: Heavy Water, V-2 Blacklist and Nazi Gold.

Bill was an avid sportsman who played football and lacrosse at Choate and lacrosse at Stanford. He translated his love of sports into supporting his children as athletes. First, as a travel hockey coach at the New Canaan Winter Club, despite, by his own admission, barely being able to skate. He was also an early leader of, and a coach for many years with, the New Canaan Lacrosse Association. An early proponent of girls’ hockey, he was the founder of the first New Canaan Winter Club Girls Hockey team in 1987 and a coach until 1994. Later, he was a devoted follower of any sport his children played, from New Canaan High School athletics to Yale Football, Dartmouth Football and Cornell Women’s Ice Hockey. He was never happier than when he could attend one of his kids’ (and later grandkids’) games, especially if it was followed up with an epic tailgate.

Bill was a long-time member of the Country Club of New Canaan, which he loved with a passion, and where he served as President from 2006-2008. He also had a fondness for the Chesapeake Bay, where he had grown up sailing on the refurbished bugeye Privateer and the ketch Pietra with his parents and siblings and later sailed the sloop Yankee Doodle with his own family. He absolutely hated skiing, but he gamely traveled to mountains all over the world from Bromely and Okemo to Mont-Tremblant and Zermatt because his family loved to hit the slopes.

Bill is survived by his wife Jodie; his four children William Burris (Therese) Heyn of New Canaan, CT, Katherine McIntosh Heyn of Norwalk, CT, Anne Heyn (Jean-Marc) Pelletier of East Longmeadow, MA and Edward Burris Heyn of Fairfield, CT; and his grandchildren William Albers, Charlotte Marie and Thomas Burris Heyn, Jane McIntosh and John Heyn Pelletier and Edward Case, Mary Dives and Jean McIntosh Heyn. He is also survived by his sisters Jeanette Springer, Susan (Andrew) Billipp, Gretchen Porter, sister-in-law Corien Heyn, his favorite cousin Eunice (John) Thomas as well as nieces, nephews, grand nieces and grand nephews too numerous to count. He is predeceased by his parents, his brother Christopher Heyn and his brother-in-law Tom Springer.

The family would like to thank the staff of Norwalk Hospital and Waveny Care Center for the care they provided Bill in his final days. In lieu of flowers the family suggests that friends consider donations in Bill’s memory be made to the New Canaan Athletic Foundation (https://newcanaanaf.org/guide-to-give/) or, for members of the Club, the CCNC Foundation at the Country Club of New Canaan. The family is planning a celebration of life in the spring with further details to follow.