Come In & Spend Time With Doug
March 28, 1951 – August 7, 2026
There was a lot of life packed into Doug’s 75 years!
He was a New York kid who went to Woodstock, an economics scholar who chose Stanford, a tax attorney trusted for decades with extraordinarily complicated lives and legacies, a surfer who fell in love with California, an avid investor who lived for Option Friday, a skier, golfer, tennis player, cook, pianist, James Bond aficionado, devoted friend, loving brother and devoted partner—and a man who remained endlessly curious about the world until the very end.
Most of all, Doug loved being alive.
Dougie
Douglas D. Cicione was born on March 28, 1951, in Queens, New York, to Frank Cicione and Anne Theresa Casella Cicione.
The family later moved to Long Island, where Doug grew up in a close Italian-American Catholic household alongside his older sister, Mary.
To Mary, of course, he was simply Dougie.
She remembers a serious, extraordinarily observant little boy who seemed to understand his surroundings almost from the beginning. Doug was the child who somehow did things correctly the first time.
Mary is equally emphatic about another childhood distinction:
Doug never got in trouble.
Not rarely. Never.
One of her favorite memories is of little Dougie sitting on the bottom of the two steps leading into the family's sunken living room, completely absorbed in his small cowboy figures. When Mary babysat, she even taught him how to fake a convincing snore so their parents wouldn't discover he was still awake.
The Cicione household was deeply Catholic. Sundays meant Mass, without exception. On one particularly memorable Sunday, the family dog, Skippy, apparently decided he should attend too—walking roughly a mile on his own and somehow finding the Ciciones sitting in their pew.
Doug's parents profoundly shaped the man he became.
Mary attributes his work ethic, strong morals and sense of personal responsibility “100 percent” to Frank and Anne. Doug and his father played handball together, and Frank was so proud of his son that he named his construction company Douglas Home Incorporated.
Those early lessons stayed with Doug his entire life: work hard, do the right thing, honor your word and help people when you can.
A Mind That Wanted to Master Things
Doug had an unusual combination of intellectual ability, discipline, and natural athleticism.
He studied piano seriously and performed a Russian concerto while attending Chaminade. He practiced karate, played handball, loved tennis, and later became captain of his college bowling team.
Doug attended Chaminade High School on Long Island, graduating in June 1969 among the top ten students in his class. Its rigorous Catholic, college-preparatory environment suited a young man already defined by discipline, curiosity, and ambition.
Two months later, in one of those wonderfully Doug juxtapositions, he was at Woodstock.
Doug attended the original festival with his cousin Harvey and his brother, driving there together and becoming part of one of the era's defining cultural moments.
There is something wonderfully Doug about the fact that the future Stanford-trained tax lawyer—meticulous, disciplined, and famously precise—could also casually say:
Yes, I was at Woodstock.
Doug went on to St. Lawrence University, graduating in 1973 summa cum laude with highest distinction in Economics and earning membership in Phi Beta Kappa. He was a proud member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity. He received the Wall Street Journal Award for an outstanding economics thesis.
His intellectual curiosity wasn't confined to a classroom.
Doug's mother helped run the family's candy store, and Doug once used its customers to conduct research related to the New York Lottery. His work was apparently impressive enough that New York State tried to recruit him.
Doug declined.
He had somewhere else to go.
Stanford—and California
Doug was accepted to many of the country's leading law schools, including Harvard, Yale and Stanford.
He chose Stanford.
The decision was characteristically practical and ambitious: Stanford offered the opportunity to pursue his J.D. and M.B.A. together, allowing Doug to combine two fields he loved while completing the degrees efficiently. He attended on scholarship and earned both degrees in 1977.
Stanford brought a New Yorker to California.
California made sure he stayed.
Doug discovered sunshine, warm weather, the Pacific and surfing—and quickly realized that returning east to pursue the traditional Wall Street mergers-and-acquisitions career many of his peers were choosing wasn't particularly appealing.
He had found home.
The Counselor People Trusted
Doug was admitted to the California Bar in 1978 and built a distinguished legal career spanning nearly five decades.
He became a Certified Specialist in Taxation Law and a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law through the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization.
His practice included federal and state taxation, estate planning, wills and trusts, probate, tax collection and litigation, corporate matters, real estate and sophisticated tax planning.
Still learning—always learning—Doug earned an LL.M. in Taxation from the University of San Diego School of Law in 1984 and became a licensed California real estate broker in 1986. His professional work was recognized by Super Lawyers for taxation law.
But the credentials aren't what best explain Doug's career.
Trust does.
Doug practiced law the same way he lived: carefully, ethically, and personally.
Clients remained with him for decades. Many became friends. Over the years, Doug served as tax attorney and trusted adviser to household names in entertainment—including an iconic performer whose career included legendary Las Vegas residencies—as well as prominent leaders and families in business.
Some of those relationships lasted for decades.
Doug understood that his clients weren't merely handing him tax returns or estate documents. They were entrusting him with families, businesses, fortunes, problems, and legacies.
He took that responsibility seriously.
Option Friday
Economics never stopped fascinating Doug after college.
The financial markets became one of his lifelong intellectual playgrounds.
He challenged himself across virtually everything the markets could offer: stocks, options, bonds, futures and sophisticated trading strategies. Doug didn't simply invest; he wanted to understand the machinery underneath it all.
And then there was Option Friday.
For Doug, this was part strategy, part intellectual competition and part sport.
His longtime friend Don Wiley remembers remarkably few Fridays that earned the dreaded assessment:
“Not a good Option Friday.”
Those, naturally, became some of the better stories.
Doug loved things that required judgment. He enjoyed understanding the rules, calculating the risk and then testing himself against the outcome.
Whether it was markets, law, golf—or life—that instinct was pure Doug.
Surf, Snow, Greens and a Little Bond
Doug certainly knew how to work.
He also knew how to live.
He loved the ocean and surfing. He loved skiing. He loved golf—and keeping an accurate scorecard mattered, because of course it did.
He loved tennis and seemed to possess the annoying gift of being naturally good at that too.
He enjoyed cooking for the people he loved, following markets, discussing politics, learning new technology, telling stories, and spending time with the friends he carefully collected over a lifetime.
And he was an avid James Bond fan.
The originals, naturally.
In some ways, Doug embodied the best of the 1970s and 1980s: confident, ambitious, adventurous, polished, competitive, and appreciative of a great car, a great meal, a great ski run, or a little calculated risk.
He worked extremely hard for his life.
And then he enjoyed it.
The Ocean
Eventually Dana Point became one of the defining places in Doug's life.
The ocean wasn't simply scenery to him. It represented freedom, challenge, beauty, and the California life that had captured him decades earlier.
Doug served on the Board of Directors and Advisory Board of the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, supporting an organization dedicated to the ocean and educating generations who would come after him.
It was an unusually fitting way for Doug to give back to a place that had given him so much.
He Chose His People Well
One of Doug's greatest talents may have been recognizing good people.
He made friendships that lasted not years, but decades.
Friends including Don Wiley and Dave Boras, relationships dating to the 1970s, and holidays in San Diego with the Cuomo Family, remained firmly beside him more than half a century later.
That probably tells you more about Doug than any award or degree ever could.
His sister Mary describes him as studious, ambitious, kind, and genuinely good-willed toward anyone who crossed his path.
Doug helped people with no strings attached.
There was no invisible ledger.
He didn't help someone so that person would someday owe him something.
He simply extended his hand.
“Anything He Touched Turned to Gold”
When asked what she most wanted people to understand about her brother, Mary answered immediately:
“Anything he touched turned to gold.”
She didn't mean that Doug never faced disappointment or hardship.
He did.
What struck Mary was how rarely she saw disappointment define him.
When something simply could not be changed, Doug would tell her:
“Mary, that's the way things will be. It is what it is.”
And then he moved forward.
Mary believes his faith had much to do with that ability to accept life as it came.
Doug's Catholic upbringing never entirely left him. Beneath the formidable intellect, strong opinions, independence, and attorney's instinct to examine every possible angle was a grounded belief that life itself was a gift.
And Doug appreciated that gift.
Deeply.
He Loved Life
This is what Mary would be heartbroken for anyone to miss:
Doug loved life.
He loved the experiences it gave him and, even more importantly, the people he encountered along the way.
He was ambitious without losing his kindness.
Successful without needing to announce it.
Generous without keeping score.
Intellectually confident while remaining endlessly curious.
And loyal enough that many of his friendships could be measured in half-centuries.
Those who knew him could add their own adjectives:
Brilliant. Principled. Meticulous. Funny. Strong-willed. Curious. Generous. Loyal.
And unmistakably Doug.
He was a Queens kid who went to Woodstock.
A scholarship student who chose Stanford.
A New Yorker who discovered the California coast and stayed.
A lawyer whose clients became lifelong friends.
A market student who looked forward to Option Friday.
A pianist, tennis player, skier, golfer, and surfer who loved mastering whatever he undertook.
A Bond aficionado who never lost his appreciation for a little style and adventure.
A son who learned integrity from his parents.
A brother who was always Dougie to Mary.
A devoted partner to Laura.
A man completely smitten with his French Bulldog, Frank.
A friend whose friendships lasted fifty years.
And someone who, even after accomplishing more than most people ever will, never stopped appreciating the simple privilege of being here.
Doug loved life.
And he lived it exceptionally well.
Family
Doug was preceded in death by his beloved parents, Frank Cicione and Anne Theresa Casella Cicione; his aunt Mary Homan; his cousin Anthony Casella; his uncles John, Joe, Louie and Mike Casella; his uncles Jimmy, Joey and Benny Cicione; his aunt Loretta Cicione Webb and uncle Peter Webb; and his aunts Lena and Jean Cicione.
He is survived by his sister, Mary Dolores Cicione; nephew Gordono Pasquaretto and Gordono's father, Gary Pasquaretto and God Father Sal Artusa/Linda Artusa/Emily and Lola Artusa; aunt Terry Bernard; cousins Bobby Bernard, Patty Bernard, cousin Harvey Homan, and Margaret Casella; Margaret's sons David, Gregory and Paul; Terry's grandchildren Alex, Michael and Nicholas Bernard; Denata Bernard; Terry's great-grandson, Dominic; his loving partner, Laura; and the extended family and extraordinary circle of friends Doug gathered over a lifetime.
And, of course, Frank aka “Frankie” the French Bulldog, who would surely object to being categorized anywhere other than immediate family.