Frank Carey, known as Sumner, currently lives in Millwood, Virginia, a town of less than 200 people where he and his wife, Luanne know almost everyone in town.  He is retired from a long, illustrious engineering career that took him from Spalding Sports, to ITT Industries, and Koch Membrane Systems. His final post was as an Electrical Engineer at Blue Summit Technologies, Inc in Research and Development for the Department of Defense and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. 

In 1965, when Sumner was in sixth grade, he was diagnosed with dyslexia. He and his family were so happy to figure out why he had been having a hard time reading and comprehending text and knew they needed a “better” learning environment for him. The next year, Sumner began his journey as a Watkinson lifer, with his best friend Arthur (Ty) Tryon ’72 joining him. What Sumner loved about his time at Watkinson was that the teachers looked past his learning disability and focused on his abilities and his interests. When he was interested in learning more about math, they would focus his learning in that direction. In fact, when Mrs. Gugnoni, his Watkinson math tutor took the time to explain the WHY of the math they were learning, Sumner said “it all clicked”. That was when he started to love math and saw a future in that field. Former Head of School Charley Todd was another influential figure who arranged for Sumner to take his first course in electronics at the University of Hartford while attending Watkinson.  After he graduated from Watkinson he went on to Central Maine Vocational Technical Institute where he earned an A.S in Electronics and was first in his class. He later earned a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering Degree from the University of Hartford.

Sumner retired in 2020 and now spends his free time flipping local homes with his wife, Luanne.