Bonnie joined The Fontayne Group in early 1997 to assist with research and database projects and a variety of Internet activities on behalf of TFG clients. She has more than 10,000 entries on her bookmark list, and is so adept at finding stuff on-line that a colleague dubbed her "Boogle" (formerly "Bonnie Vista"). She supervises the firm's online promotions work for clients.
Raised in Forest Hills and East Quogue on New York's Long Island, Bonnie began commuting between the family's two homes as an infant, and has been traveling ever since. She's visited most of the lower 48 States, Hawaii, Canada, and lived in The Bahamas for six months. She comes by her wanderlust naturally -- her great grandfather traveled the world, building things. Her grandfather -- born in Novia Scotia during one of his parents' peregrinations, was a free thinker and entrepreneur who owned a gold mine in Northern California at the turn of the century.Bonnie took her first plane ride on her own at age 8, on a Constellation from Logan to La Guardia. When she was 19, on a trip to Brazil, she flew from Belem up the Amazon to Weyerhauser’s tree farm to discuss plans for importing products to the U.S. Yes, she literally flew the plane. She was soon equally at home on the water as well as in the air. Also at 19, she competed in the World Championship Soling Regatta, held that year on Long Island Sound, at a time when few women were racing Solings at that level. She continued to sail competitively for another three years.
After training as a legal secretary, she worked for Westinghouse in New York before moving to Miami in 1971 in order to pursue her love of sailing away from the limits of the New York winters. In Miami, she joined Steel Hector & Davis, today one of the top law firms in Florida and the United States, working with such people as Talbot D’Alemberte (former President of Florida State University), Buddy McKay (former Lt. Gov. of Florida), and former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno whom Bonnie describes as "one of the most honest and ethical people I’ve been privileged to know." In 1987, she moved from Steel Hector to Coll Davidson Carter, formed by six SHD partners; in 1991 she resigned to become a freelance legal assistant.
Bonnie is the mother of Dale, who is now himself the proud father
of Riley, age six years. He and his wife, Rachel, live near Chicago. In 1990, Bonnie and Dale, then nine, spent the summer on a Great Adventure roadtrip which included the first of many visits to the Grand Canyon, Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Taos, N.M., roaming the coast of Northern California, a week in S.F. (her favorite city in the world), walking on the Bonneville Salt flats in Utah and mining gold in South Dakota.
In 1995 she moved from Miami to Port Richey, on the west coast of Florida, in order to write the ending to a 31-year fairy tale: in November 1995, she married her first love (they met at church and went steady when they were 15). Her husband, John, just happens to be the brother of TFG president Cynthia Fontayne, who quickly noticed Bonnie's affinity for the Net and pressed her into employment. John now accuses Cynthia of turning him into a Web Widower. Bonnie's other interests include reading, family, friends, rubber stamp art projects and Shih Tzus. |
