Brief Biography

Egons was born on July 18, 1953 in Washington DC. He was the second son of Vilis Richards and Irēna Plavnieks, who had emigrated to the United States from Latvia in 1949 after spending approximately four years in a displaced persons camp in Hanau, Germany. Vilis Richards and Irēna officially became American citizens the year that Egons was born. 

Egons grew up in a close-knit family within a broader community of Latvian exiles in and around the Washington DC area. They supported each other and built a church in Rockville, MD which also served as focal point for worked with other Latvian-Americans throughout the country to preserve Latvian culture and advocate for a country which was now behind the iron curtain. 

The Plavnieks family suffered the tragic loss of Egons’ older brother, Olafs Edvins, when he died in 1957 of a degenerative muscular disease. The emotional support provided by family and community would have been crucial through this difficult period. 

Throughout his childhood and college years Egons lived with his parents and grandmother in a Washington, DC suburb called Garrett Park, MD. He attended Coventry Catholic School and then St. Anselms before achieving his undergraduate and masters degrees in Musicology from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. 

From early on, music played a significant role in Egons’ life. He studied piano but also played a stringed instrument called the kokle in Latvian folk music groups. The year Egons graduated from high school he played a number of concert dates in Europe with the Latvian folk ensemble. The group’s trip, which included cities in England, Germany and Sweden, represented Egons’ first introduction to international travel. Egons loved rock music. He and his cousins Ivars and Andris played in bands together when they were teenagers and Egons eventually played in a number of other groups while a college student. 

While a graduate student at Catholic University Egons performed solo piano at Carnegie Hall in New York City, splitting the bill with a young Latvian-American vocal soloist. His performances at Catholic’s Ward Hall included pieces by Ravel, Chopin, Beethoven and Bach. 

Egons met Karen Dyrland in 1975 and the two married on December 31st, 1977. They moved to Madison, WI with her young son Kris. Karen worked at the university hospital as a nurse while Egons worked on his masters degree in arts administration. When Egons graduated he had job offers from IBM and Proctor and Gamble and chose the latter. It would be the beginning of a long and successful career with P&G which would bring the family on a tour of various American and European cities that started in Appleton Wisconsin. While Egons worked as a regional salesman for the company, it was Karen’s turn to earn her own masters degree in nursing at the University of Oshkosh before starting her own career as a nurse practitioner. 

While in Appleton Egons’ second son Richards Olafs was born. Success with Proctor and Gamble brought the family to Cincinnati — a necessary step through the company’s global headquarters for any management role at the company. A year laster they moved to Cleveland, OH before landing in Baltimore, MD as Kris started college at George Washington University.

Baltimore was the headquarters of the Noxell Corporation, which Proctor and Gamble purchased in 1989. The company’s most famous brand was Cover Girl, and Egons’ performance in the context of the newly acquired company earned him a unique and exciting opportunity which arose in relation to another event in 1989: the fall of the the Berlin Wall. Egons was offered a role in helping to set up Proctor and Gamble operations in the former Soviet Union. In 1993 he, Karen and Richards moved first to St. Petersburg, Russia and then soon to Moscow, which would be their primary residence until they left for Latvia in the summer of 1995. 

The job in Russia at this time in its history presented, as might be imagined, considerable challenges to both the company and to Egons and family personally. They were also witnesses to an extraordinary time in history. Egons’ work involved a significant amount of travelling. Egons itineraries would regularly see him venture away from Moscow and St. Petersburg to places such as Novosibirsk, Stavropol, Nizhny Novgoard, Kemerovo, Omsk, Rostov, Samara, Kazan, Saransk and Vladivostock. 

In 1995 Egons was asked by Proctor and Gamble to help set up the company’s operations in the Baltics. The job offered an opportunity to actually live in Riga, Latvia’s capital city. This was an opportunity to return to the country his parents had been forced to leave and help contribute in a meaningful way to its viability and economy. He became a dual citizen. While based in Latvia Egons worked with Proctor and Gamble to donate to charities there and, in a nod to his musical background, restore the the organ in the city’s Dom Cathedral. 

Also while in Latvia, Egons’ marriage to Karen broke down. She and Richards moved back to the United States in 1998 while Egons continued to be based in Riga, with work often taking him elsewhere in the Baltics, Europe and, increasingly, to places in the Middle East such as Yemen.

Egons met his second wife Anda in Riga and they were married in Latvia in 2002. In December of that year, Egons’ third son, Roberts, was born. Proctor and Gamble sent him to Algeria and his family lived with him there for a time before moving back to the US and settling again in Baltimore. There, Egons worked for two years back at Noxell before retiring from the firm. 

In 2008 Egons, Anda and Roberts moved back to Garrett Park to live with his mother Irēna, who was 80 years old. He had come full circle, geographically, and the move marked the end of a long, successful career with Proctor and Gamble that had, along with the inevitable challenges and tribulations, brought him on an incredible international journey.

Once back in the area Egons was an active member of the local Latvian American community and played organ and piano at the Latvian church in Rockville every week. The family returned to Latvia regularly, retaining strong ties there. Egons’ continued close ties with Kris and Richards brought the family together in Riga, Garrett Park, London (now Kris’ residence) and, occasionally, on trips elsewhere in Europe.  

On the lookout for new challenges and opportunities, Egons and Anda became business owners in 2009 when they founded a successful Brightstar Care franchise in nearby Bethesda, Maryland which is still going strong today. 

In January of 2020 Egons was diagnosed with cancer, and he passed away on the 24th of September. He was laid to rest with his long lost brother and his parents in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, DC.