Last update made on 04 May, 2009

WHO ARE FRANCOIS AND SYLVIE DORMOY? HOW THEY MET AND IN WHICH COUNTRIES DID THEY LIVE?

How François & Sylvie met. 

In march 1972 François came back to Paris from New York after 6 months of an university program which included economic research work in air transport with Pan Am and then an aviation consultant (R. Dixon Speas Associates).   He visited TWA Office in Paris where Sylvie was working (in the public relations department) as he had a meeting with the airline representative in France.  He met Sylvie purely accidentally.  That was in March 1972.  He was due to complete his university thesis in June of that year.

They got married in November 1972.

It did not take long for them to get engaged and then married.  They did so on 4th November 1972 in Le Vesinet.  They had a great party (400 people) held in a very nice auberge in St. Germain. François's parents and other relatives came from Guadeloupe specially for the wedding.

They  went to Guadeloupe.

François had to perform his military duties, but instead of going to the army, he was sent to Guadeloupe as the Deputy-Director of Pointe-à-Pitre International Airport (in the Caribbean) for a two years period.  At that time, Sylvie was working in the Public Relations Office of the French Government Tourist Office.  François took a lot of photos that were used for promotional brochures for the Tourist Office as well as for Air France Jet Tour brochure.  Some of them were published in the Miami Herald and other magazines.

They lived in   New York.

François was offered a very interesting job as an air transport economist in an aviation consulting firm in New York (R. Dixon Speas Associates).  So both Sylvie and himself left Guadeloupe in 1974 after he terminated his assignment at Pointe-à-Pitre airport.  He was given the US green card just within a few months, as the company employed the best lawyers to expedite the process.  They moved first in a small apartment in North Hempstead (Long Island)  that they found too noisy, and then after just one month in this apartment they broke the lease and went to a semi-detached condo in the Long island North Shore area.  After a few month, they found an individual house in Port Washington, near the beach and the yatch club.  That was a great period !!   Christopher, their first son, was born there on 4th March 1976.  François created, together with a few other people, a camera club.

They lived in Geneva.

After working three years with this aviation consulting firm in New York, François was offered a very interesting job in the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in Geneva (in 1977).   So the whole family went to Geneva.  It was a nice area but it was very hard to adapt to a fairly austere atmosphere in that town (very expensive houses, so they had to rent an apartment, very limited shopping facilities compared with New York, foggy winter seasons and Swiss people not too "socialising".  But they managed to survive and after 13 years living in an apartment, decided to move across the border to France and  had a house built in la Roche-sur-Foron in 1990, as this was more affordable than in Geneva.

They now live in Montreal.

With the restructuring of IATA, François was transferred to the Montreal Office of the Association.  So the whole family left the Geneva area to settle in Montreal.   They found a nice house, nice people.  In fact François has many relatives living in the area and Sylvie as well.  It's their new home.