Pat Hyndman would have liked the party thrown in his honor Sunday at the UC San Diego Faculty Club. About 300 people attended a memorial service to remember the community leader who died March 9, at 98 years old.
Hyndman was remembered as an optimist, who believed aging only really happened when a person stopped learning and loving.
“Pat said, the impossible is just a little harder,’” said Rich Collato, president emeritus of the San Diego County YMCA. “‘Break it into parts and fix it’, he told me.”
Hyndman worked for 26 years at Vistage, formerly known The Executive Committee or TEC, a business organization that offers advice and counsel to chief executives. He also served as a president and board member of the YMCA of San Diego County, chair of United Way of San Diego County, president of Kiwanis Club of San Diego, member of the San Diego County Board of Education, member of the La Mesa-Spring Valley Board of Education, president of the Stein Institute for Research on Aging at the UCSD School of Medicine, and member of the board of trustees at the Scripps Clinic.
“He offered wisdom without being pompous,” said Rafael Pastor, the former CEO of Vistage. “Pat was a giver. His smile and positive outlook, we will never forget.”
Patterson Nathan Hyndman was born Dec. 18, 1914 in Pittsburgh, where he grew up and graduated from high school. He attended Pasadena Junior College and eventually earned a degree in business administration from the University of California in 1938. He served as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army from 1939 to 1940 and continued to support the war effort as a field engineer for Sperry Gyroscope Co. throughout the 1940s.
Scott Blanchard, of the Ken Blanchard Company, said Hyndman’s business sense was keen until his death. “He drove to our last board meeting in December,” Blanchard said. “I remember a board meeting in 2009, we thought things were really bad, but Pat thought there was opportunity. ‘Never let a good recession go by without investing,’ he said.”
“Pat chose happiness, always, and that’s what he would want us to do,” said friend, physician, and colleague Lee Rice. “He really did believe that there always was a solution, whether in business or life.”
