"He was a very determined child," Glenda Foran said. "We always sat at the table for breakfast and dinner, no TV. He works very hard and everything he has wanted to do, he has succeeded at."
The parents recalled how the family moved often because of their teaching roles and that meant different schools for sons Greg and Warwick.
Pat Foran recalled Greg playing rugby but when the parents couldn't always be on the sideline, they became concerned about the contact nature of the sport, so he then switched to harriers.
Fishing and sailing were other family activities.
"The whole family are keen on fly fishing for trout," Pat recalled. "I built a cottage 50m from the Tongariro River at Taupo. Greg loved fly fishing. He also developed a passion for sailing which started in Hastings.
"He and I went halves in a 10ft sailing dinghy and we taught ourselves to sail on the lake at Hamilton and then down at Taupo. In Sydney, he got to know people who sail on Sydney Harbour and once raced to Southport."
Not long ago, the parents said, the family all attended a Wellington family wedding with Greg and his family from the US. One of the five children of brother Warwick married, the parents said.
The families have also been together on the Gold Coast recently at Broadbeach.
Records show Foran owns two New Zealand properties: one in Hamilton which his father said was an investment and a section in the Coromandel where no home has yet been built, at Onemana near Whangamatā.
He also has an inner-city Auckland apartment where he might live, at least initially.
"Air New Zealand will be pleased to have him" Pat Foran concluded.
*****
• Gregory Stephen Foran
• Born: July 22, 1961
• Parents: retired schoolteachers Pat and Glenda Foran, Papamoa
• Brother, Warwick Foran, Wellington
• Lives: Fayetteville, United States
• Primary education: Twyford School Hastings. Secondary: St John's College, Hastings; St John's College, Hamilton; Hillcrest High School, Hamilton.
• Married with four children
