About Us

We are Liz Fisher and Malcolm Walter and we are Two Retired Folk. And we are also married, but only recently, and this is where it gets interesting. Liz retired at the end of 2015 after a 30-year career in the financial services industry with firms like Fidelity Investments, JPMorgan Chase and Spencer Stuart where she was a senior partner and head of the Global Financial Services Practices. Malcolm’s career spans over 40-years and includes serving as COO or CFO for several privately-held and public companies. In 2016, Malcolm retired as COO of Bentley Systems, a global software company whose mission is sustaining infrastructure.

Liz and Malcolm met for the first time in Quito, Ecuador in August 2016. Quite separately, we had each accepted an invitation from Lynne Twist to join her, and the other founders of The Pachamama Alliance, on a two-week trip to the rainforests of Ecuador to witness their work in helping the indigenous tribes to preserve the Amazon. Before continuing with this narrative, it is important to provide a little background.

Here are excerpts from a letter that Malcolm wrote to Liz’s family introducing himself.

Like Liz, I was born into a family of five with two brothers and two sisters on the east coast in a small town outside of Philadelphia.  My mom & dad got married in 1944 after he returned from WWII where he was the pilot of a B-17 bomber dropping bombs on Germany, the ancestral home of the Walters.  Having grown up as a depression era child, my father had two jobs during his life.  The first lasted 6 months and the second, 40 years.  They have both passed away, but they left behind a large family that has many of the qualities of post-war America – an equal mix of tight bonds and dysfunction.

As for me, my childhood was something Norman Rockwell painted pictures of.  I always felt loved, confident and secure – gifts that I carry with me to this day.  At the age of 23, I married a hometown girl, Wendy, and we proceeded to raise a family of five – four boys (including first-born twins) and a girl (#4 in rotation).  We spent most of our lives raising our kids in our small hometown, but we also found ourselves living for multi-year stints in Seattle, Washington DC and California.  You have likely heard that Wendy passed away after an 18-month battle with cancer.  That was almost six years ago.

The Walter Family

During most of those six years, I poured myself into my work as COO of a software company, Bentley Systems, which had me on the road constantly all over the world.  I have been one of the fortunate ones who loves his work, but the travel eventually wears you out.  It was a convenient way to deal with the loss of my wife, but an unhealthy way to build a life. 

Sometime in 2015, I gave myself permission to date and had penciled in 2016 as a time to get that activity started.  Well 2016 arrived and, in spite of my plans, I did nothing.  I knew I would eventually get around to it and had this vague notion that computer dating was a good idea to meet people with like interests. I just couldn’t pull the trigger or get online.  But 2016 was important in another respect.  I had decided to retire at the end of the year at the age of 63.  2016 was a transition year for me which proved to be fortuitous because when I was invited to go on the Pachamama trip to Ecuador, I didn’t hesitate to accept.

Lynne Twist, the officiant at our wedding

It was on my first full day in Ecuador, while having breakfast at our small hotel, that I noticed this woman sitting alone at her table.  She was a very attractive woman and I kept my eye on her expecting “the husband” to come down the stairs and join her for breakfast at any moment.  But, as the minutes passed away, and no husband showed up, I walked over and introduced myself.  The hotel was so small that everyone having breakfast that morning was likely part of our trip and indeed, “Liz”, as she introduced herself, was with our group.  So, I invited Liz to join me and a small number of others who were going to spend the day at the museum and otherwise touring the city.  She said yes, and the rest is history.

Really?  Who meets that way?  So back to the idea of computer dating which is premised on matching people with similar interests.  Makes a lot of sense actually.  Well, exactly who decides that taking two weeks off to visit the indigenous tribes of Ecuador would be a good idea?  That, it seems to me, is the ultimate filter.  Liz and I hit it off immediately that first morning as we walked the several miles to the museum.  And the relationship continued to grow during our two weeks moving from village to village.  To say that our trip to the rainforest was a life-changing experience is the ultimate understatement.  We were falling in love and I think everyone knew it. 

The Fisher Family

After returning to the modern world, we continued the relationship and then came the necessary series of “auditions” in which Liz had to meet my children and I had to meet her extensive friend network and at least some of her family.  The auditions concluded in a road trip in which we drove to Seattle for Liz’s fifth and final child visit and then onto Portland where I had the opportunity to stay with Dick (Liz’s brother) and Jane and meet their large and beautiful family.  It was after leaving Portland and making our way down the Oregon coast, having completed our respective auditions, that I asked Liz if she thought she could love me forever.  When she said “yes” I then asked her to marry me and she said “yes” a second time.

I have to tell you that I continue to believe that my life has been blessed and I am one of the very few luckiest people on the planet.  For whatever role you each played in helping Liz become the person that she is, know that I am grateful and forever will be.  As I told her recently, she is the one I have been waiting for.

We were married on June 24, 2017 at Lake Tahoe. The officiant for our ceremony was Lynne Twist – the founder of Pachamama who had invited us join her in Ecuador the year before. Everyone who knows Lynne, loves her, but we especially do because of her central role in bringing us together.