Austin “Pete” Olney served as president of the Middlesex Board from 2007 to 2015 and is now a trustee emeritus. In 2013, Pete retired as a partner in the Boston office of Holland & Knight LLP. Prior to joining that firm, he had a 33-year career as a partner with Dewey & LeBoeuf in their offices in Washington, DC, and Boston. During Pete’s legal career, he specialized in representing domestic and foreign ship owners, marine insurers, and oil companies. Previously, Pete served as Delaware’s Secretary of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. Prior to that, he was a minority counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries.

Pete graduated cum laude from Harvard College in 1970 and received his J.D. from Georgetown University in 1975. He began his second term as a Middlesex trustee in 2000, having already served on the Board as president of the Middlesex Parents’ Committee from 1997 to 2000. Pete served as the vice-chair of FCD Educational Services, Inc. and as a member of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation Board from 2013 to 2017, serving on the executive committee and chairing the philanthropy committee. He was a member of the Connecticut College Board of Trustees from 2002 to 2007 and previously served as a trustee of the Hill School in Middleburg, Virginia, for nine years, the last three as chair of that board. Currently, Pete serves as a trustee of Anatolia College in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Pete and his wife Jane have twin sons, Austin and Warwick, both of whom graduated from Middlesex in 2000, and all of whom are now residents of Colorado. Pete’s brother, Richard Olney III ’57, and two nephews, Rick ’85 and Sandy ’89, are all Middlesex alumni.