2023 IMPACT REPORT STORY

Words matter to Johan HIckey. As a teacher, an artist, a feminist, a wife, a mother, and a grandmother who speaks three languages, she chooses her words carefully and wants their full meaning to be heard and understood. She uses them to convey gratitude and respect for others, elevate marginalized people, and help build community among her colleagues and friends.

It’s why the scholarship fund that she and her family established with The Guilford Foundation (TGF) in 2022 is called the B. Joan Hickey and Dennis F. Hickey Scholarship Fund, and not the other way around. 

“These types of things always have the man’s name first, but the woman is just as important,” Hickey says. The scholarship is awarded to a graduating senior interested in teaching or another career in which communication is an essential element. “We really value communication skills.”

Hickey tends to use the pronoun “we” when talking about her many projects and interests, making it clear that she welcomes others and treats them as equals. Perhaps the habit comes from her years as a teacher, first in Bogota, Colombia, and Milan, Italy, before she settled in Connecticut at Brian McMahon High School in Norwalk. Or perhaps it derives from her position as founding director of the Center for Creative Youth, a public-private collaborative that, for 20 years, developed young artists through a pre-college summer program at Wesleyan University. Or possibly, it was honed through her many philanthropic and volunteer efforts with the Shoreline Arts Alliance, the Elm Shakespeare Company, or the Guilford Center for Children. 

But most definitely, the “we” derives from her marriage and partnership with her late husband, Dennis. They met while skiing in Vermont in 1968. She was a first-year teacher in Norwalk, and he was a graduate student at Harvard Business School and a veteran lieutenant of the United States Army. They married in 1969, and “we skied together for 48 years,” remembers Hickey. “He always skied behind me because he wanted to ensure that I was safe.” 

When the Hickeys decided to start their company, Sonitrol Security Systems of Bridgeport, Hickey says, they were equal partners, dividing and sharing the responsibilities of growing a new company, supporting a household, and raising their one-year-old son, Jeffrey. Dennis ran the company for decades and took great pride in employing local residents in a tight-knit family business and helping to grow the Sonitrol brand as it grew internationally. Coincidentally, the company’s unique technology is based on audio detection. 

The security business only strengthened the Hickeys’ belief in the importance of strong communication skills. 

“We were passionate about communication. Our staff had to be impeccable with their language, always using the right words, because they were dealing with people who have just experienced trauma in their home.” 

Nowadays, the “we” includes Jeffrey (who manages the family business), his wife Hannah, and their daughter Riley, a student at Guilford High School. 

“We have always had a family value of contributing to our community. Generosity and kindness are important for us,” Hickey explains. 

So the scholarship has become a family affair. While the staff of Guilford High School selects a short list of candidates for the scholarship, the family chooses who will receive the award and presents the award at the annual Senior Awards Night. They have been doing it for several years, with Riley now taking the stage for the presentation. Last year, they decided to establish the fund with TGF to establish a more permanent structure for the award.

TGF Executive Director Liza Petra says the scholarship awards are among the most meaningful funds that the foundation manages for just this reason. “Often, they memorialize a person or, like in this case, honor a family’s values. There is something very poignant about the permanency of leaving a legacy.”