KEVIN HYATT

Apr. 18, 1959 – July 5, 2015

Kevin Hyatt could do anything, or so it seemed. The 200-plus relatives, friends and co-workers who gathered for a celebration of his life three weeks after his July 5 death knew that firsthand.

When one of the speakers asked the gathering at the Firefighters-Postal Lake Club, “How many of you had your houses wired by Kevin?” numerous hands went up, and knowing chuckles filled the room. Kevin wasn’t an electrician. Well, he was and he wasn’t. He had earned an electrician’s license (and one for HVAC, too) but he was employed as the chief technology officer for the Hospital Sisters Health System, a demanding job of overseeing the computer operations of a health system covering more than a dozen hospitals and two dozen medical group clinics in Illinois and Wisconsin.

Kevin was an avid collector of antique cars, a mechanic and a business owner. But his passion was rescuing and caring for cats and dogs whose lives were marked by sickness, injury and impending death. As a volunteer for the Animal Protective League, he quickly took leading roles as a state-licensed humane investigator, the board’s comptroller and, beginning in 2005, board president.

During Kevin’s tenure as board president the 60-year-old organization experienced a period of unprecedented expansion, highlighted by the opening in 2006 of APL’s low-cost spay/neuter clinic.

Rarely a week went by without his working on some project at the shelter, and his fingerprints are quite literally all over APL’s property north of the state fairgrounds. He installed the electrical and computer wiring in the spay/neuter clinic, which opened in 2006. Kevin installed and maintained APL’s computer network, repaired the commercial washers and dryers, installed a huge generator to protect APL’s animals in the event of a power failure, and used his mechanic skills to work on APL’s trucks and vans.

And then there were the cats and dogs that he took in from APL. There were always several living with him and Jerry Powers in their Rochester home. The animals he took in often had medical conditions or other issues that had made their chances of adoption from APL’s shelter unlikely. More than once he took home an ailing cat or dog so that it might die in a home . . . only to have its health improve.

Kevin’s hands-on work with APL was just as evident in his role as APL’s board president. He was a model board member who set an example with his generous monetary and in-kind donations, marshaled his executive’s knowledge of budgeting and financing to advance APL’s mission, and took a lead role in strategic planning for the future. Even as his health declined over the last several years, he ensured that valuable community and vendor relationships remained solid.

In the end, there was one thing Kevin couldn’t do: endure a life increasingly circumscribed by the unrelenting pain of trigeminal neuralgia. For longer than we thought possible, Kevin worked through the pain. He once told a friend that his animals were the one thing that kept him going, and those who were closest didn’t feel slighted, just relieved that he had something that sustained him.

Kevin was so closely identified with APL that some questioned whether the organization would continue, but there was never any question it would outlive one of its greatest supporters. And how many people does it take to replace a man who could do anything? We’re still finding that out.

Evelyn Taylor, co-worker