William J Patterson

Bill was a managing general partner at SPO Partners, a private investment firm he joined in 1989. Prior to attending business school, Bill was a financial analyst for Goldman, Sachs & Co. in New York. He was the chair of the board of trustees for the California Academy of Sciences, chair of the investment committee of the Marin Community Foundation, a member of the Advisory Council of The Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University, and an active alumnus of Harvard College. He was also president of the board of the Bay Area Discovery Museum and co-chaired its capital campaign, helping to raise over $19 million for the museum’s renovation and expansion. Bill received a bachelors degree from Harvard College, magna cum laude, in 1984 and went on to earn an MBA from Stanford Business School in 1989, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. He was a cherished member of the 2004 class of Henry Crown Fellows and of the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute. Bill Patterson passed away in September 2010.In addition to his wife of 23 years, Liebe Patterson, Mr. Patterson is survived by two sons, William and Graham, and a daughter, Eleanor. He is also survived by his mother, Joan T. McNab of Aspen, Colo.; his father, Dr. William R. Patterson of Grand Junction, Colo.; a sister, Robin J. Blackwood of Bozeman, Mont.; and a brother, Thomas A. Patterson of Portola Valley, Calif.