Fernando Orta had remarkable drive and ingenuity even when I first met him as a freshman at Dartmouth.

FORBES: In Mexico, A Dartmouth Grad Fights Poverty Through Capitalism

When I first met him, through an old friend in Los Angeles, I took him for a brilliant poser.

NEWYORKER: The Martian Chroniclers

When I first met him a dozen years ago, he worked for Morgan Stanley and had earned a top-analyst ranking from Institutional Investor magazine.

FORBES: Tech Stocks at a Crossroads

Better than I did when I first met him.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: To the Rescue: The New Media & National Security

"He said to me he was Yorkshire League born and bred when I met up with him the first time and I know his heart is always going to be in the county, " Kay added.

BBC: Jim Love

We first met five years ago when I found him sitting regally on a bench having just swooped there from his usual home of Duck Island in the park's lake.

BBC: Urban pelicans attract photographic attention

When I met John Elway for the first time, I told him this story.

WSJ: Youngest GM in NFL living childhood dream

Last summer, when I first met Prof Siegert, I was too polite to remind him of what had happened to another British science project, the Beagle 2 mission to Mars, the spacecraft named after the ship that had carried Charles Darwin.

BBC: Why did the Antarctic drilling project fail?

He's been in my life ever since the first day I met him in 1963, when he was my rehearsal pianist for 'Funny Girl.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

We first met in 2005, when I did a Forbes cover story on him.

FORBES: The Sadness (And Salvation) Of New England Patriots Owner Robert Kraft