Remembering Paul B. Fay, Jr. CdeP 1937

Paul “Red” Fay passed away at his home in Woodside, California on September 23, 2009 at the age of 91. A man who knew thousands of people by name in all walks of life, he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease during his last years.

He was born in 1918 as a fourth-generation San Franciscan. He was nicknamed “Burg” at Thacher, a reference to his middle name Burgess. Red was known for his proven worth on the athletic fields, and as a senior he was not only captain of the first soccer team but he was also on the first baseball team, the tennis team, and the track team. He was a great horseman and camper, and had a penchant for taking an axe on the trails around the School, “never passing a dead tree without chopping it down.”

Red graduated from Stanford in 1941 and joined the Navy shortly after Pearl Harbor. When he was a Navy Ensign, his instructor at PT Boat School in Rhode Island was a junior officer named John F. Kennedy. They became good friends. Red was one of JFK’s closest advisors, and even an usher at his wedding to Jackie. When Kennedy was elected president, he made Red Undersecretary of the Navy. They remained close until JFK was assassinated in 1963.

After Red left Washington, he returned to a family owned business in San Francisco, the Fay Improvement Co., founded in 1875 as a paving contracting firm. Red became a founding partner in the investment research and brokerage firm Hutchinson & Co. The Fay Improvement Co. was sold in 1967, but Red reconstituted it in 1975 as a financial consulting and business ventures firm. He retired in 2005 when his health began to fail. His is survived by his wife Anita, son Paul, daughters Katherine and Sally, and seven grandchildren. “He had a wonderful, wonderful life,” said his son, Paul Fay III.

Click here to read the notice in the San Francisco Chronicle.