Kent Field Warner

Kent Field Warner died on September 17, 2025, having lived a full, engaged, and loving life for almost 100 years. He built an impressive business, was deeply involved with family, contributed in significant and lasting ways to social justice and community, and was an avid tennis player and sailor well into his 80s. Flinty and direct-every bit the Yankee-he was also compassionate and fun-loving, active and energetic, and interested in all aspects of the world until his final months.

Born January 9,1926 in Brooklyn, Kent was raised with his younger brother, Scott, in Douglaston Manor, Queens, NY. The Manor had a tennis club and access to Long Island Sound: an ideal place for a budding tennis player and sailor to be raised.

After serving in the Navy as a Lieutenant on a mine sweeper in the Pacific through the end of the war, Kent enrolled in Princeton, from which he graduated with a BS in Mechanical Engineering in 1947. He met Mary Alice Linen, who was attending Smith College, and they married in 1951, just one week after Mary Alice graduated.

He and Mary Alice had 4 children--Schuyler, Susan, Stuart and Sally - who they raised in Scarsdale for 15 years as active members of the Scarsdale Congregational Church.

After working for a number of years at other firms, Kent started Warner & Hoenigmann, with Frank Hoenigmann in 1964. An engineering firm specializing in materials handling systems, W&H designed and installed large industrial baggage, box and clothing handling systems for airports and warehouses around the country. Sixty years later, the firm is still going strong in northern NJ. (And Kent continued on as an engineer in his own way, figuring out a way to repair or refurbish any household item with duct tape, coat hangers, and epoxy.)

Kent and Mary Alice moved their family to White Plains in 1967, joined Ridgeview Church and dove into volunteering with a number of community projects.

It's a theme that continued throughout his life. Kent was long involved with nonprofit organizations, including serving as board chair of Planned Parenthood of Westchester, president of the nonprofit company that built the 99-unit Ferris Avenue affordable housing building in White Plains, and Board member of the Spaulding Youth Center for autistic children in New Hampshire.

Retiring to Center Harbor, NH in 1993, Kent and Mary Alice bought an antique farmhouse (christened "The Court House" for the tennis court Kent installed on the property) that was walking distance to the house on Squam Lake they'd owned for two decades.

They joined the Center Harbor Congregational Church, in the pew every Sunday, taking on a range of leadership roles. And once again they threw themselves into community involvement, famously running against each other in the NH State Representative race. (Neither won.)

But the crowning achievement of Kent and Mary Alice's shared partnership came after they left New Hampshire for Rye, NY, and in 2014, founded the Portchester nonprofit that became known as 5 Steps to Five. Based on the research showing that 90% of brain development occurs before age 3-and that children who succeed in Kindergarten have a significantly greater chance of academic success throughout life-5 Steps to Five continues to show Portchester parents of babies and toddlers that Nurture, Talk, Read, Play and Explore are the keys to unlocking their children's potential and setting them up for life.

Kent and Mary Alice moved to The Osborn in Rye in 2022, where they found camaraderie and loving care. After Mary Alice passed away later in 2022 Kent soldiered on, keeping up with their grandchildren, working out at the gym, enjoying murder mysteries and Netflix series, and looking forward to meals every day with his large table of convivial friends.

Kent is survived by his brother, Scott, his four children, seven grandchildren, two step-grandchildren, and their spouses. Donations may be made in his memory to 5 Steps to Five. Email info@5stepstofive.org and/or to The Osborn Foundation to benefit the employees. Email clevy@theosborn.org.