Patrick Joseph Leahy
1966 - 2026
Patrick Joseph Leahy died on January 1, 2026 at the age of 59, two far-too-short months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer (and far too soon by any measure).
He was born on November 29, 1966 in Portland, Maine and split his colorful childhood among Northern California, Santa Monica, and Downeast Maine, following his mother Margaret around the country along with his older brother Butch. His happiest childhood moments were those spent in Santa Monica, where he developed his lifelong love of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Lakers, and Southern California more broadly. And so, after graduating as valedictorian from Washington Academy in East Machias, Maine in 1983, he headed back to Southern California to major in Political Science and French at the University of California, Los Angeles, becoming a family trend-setter in that regard (his mother and daughter Caroline both followed him to UCLA at different times) and turning his future family into big UCLA sports fans (Go Bruins). (We suggest that any basketball fans watch a UCLA men’s or women’s basketball game in his honor. His wife Sophie and his daughters Caroline and Annabelle did so in person on January 3 and watched the women crush their rivals USC.)
During his college years, he also spent a year in Bordeaux, France, laying the foundation for his eventually near-perfect French, which would helpfully impress his future French in-laws and endlessly confuse people who struggled to identify where he was from. (Belgium seemed to be a popular guess. But nope, he was just really annoyingly good at languages.) He also had the opportunity to travel the world for the first time that year, hitchhiking as far north as Finland and having his belongings stolen from trains as far south as Italy.
Upon his 1987 graduation from UCLA, he moved to New York to attend Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, earning a master’s degree in International Affairs while continuing to work far too many hours to pay his own way through school (as he had at UCLA).
He then started his career in finance at Manufacturers Hanover Bank—which became, during his tenure, Chemical Bank and then Chase Manhattan Bank—spending ten years there working in a variety of positions in telecoms finance, leveraged finance, general corporate, and investment banking in New York, Paris, and London. (Yes, this part was stolen from his LinkedIn.) It was during that time that he met his wife Sophie over intra-office email before beginning a cross-English Channel courtship (with Patrick in Paris and Sophie in London) that they kept a secret from their shared secretary (very scandalous). Once they married in 1994, they settled in London and both continued to work for Chase, as they welcomed their first two kids, Caroline and Annabelle.
In 1999, they decided to make a big move to Bethesda, Maryland, after Patrick had secured a job in nearby Washington, D.C. at the International Finance Corporation—the private-sector arm of the World Bank Group focused on impact investing in emerging markets. He ended up working at IFC for nearly 25 years, working in sectors as varied as telecoms, health and education, tourism, and manufacturing in regions as varied as Asia Pacific and Latin America (as well as globally). At IFC, he was able to travel the world (e.g., going to Mongolia and tasting attempts to make dried yak cheese curds crispier to appeal to a younger, potato chip loving audience) and work on rewarding projects, while (according to the outpouring of messages we’ve received from his former colleagues) becoming a much-appreciated and respected mentor and thoughtful and intelligent leader (he would have cringed at this but, sorry, it’s true). He, Sophie, and third kid Sebastien (born not long after the move to Bethesda) spent a great three years (four for Patrick) living in Hong Kong during his time as Regional Head of Industry, Manufacturing, Agribusiness, and Services, Asia Pacific.
And while he was working hard and making a difference in the lives of others, he always made time to be an amazing dad (by any measure, but certainly for someone who had no father to look to as a role model). He would do things like drive eight hours to pick Caroline up from her house during COVID and end up beating her and her roommates at both Scrabble and darts (even though they, unlike him, had been practicing both for weeks), take long road trips to visit colleges with Sebastien and sneak in a U.S. men’s national soccer team game, and fly from California to D.C. to load up a car with Annabelle’s stuff from a storage unit and drive it up to Boston before flying right back across the country. He patiently coached soccer teams, instilled great music taste in his kids (causing them to be decades younger than anyone else at a James Taylor and Carole King or Eagles concert in 2007 and excited to experience the Newport Folk Festival in 2022) while also allowing the kids to put on their own favorites, drove and flew thousands of miles to be at everything from Caroline’s and Annabelle’s 5:15 P.M. basketball and lacrosse games across awful D.C. rush hour traffic to Annabelle’s college basketball games in Minnesota’s frigid January and Sebastien’s soccer games in Vietnam and China, made dad jokes and puns so bad that he would make himself cry of laughter at the terribleness of the jokes and the strength of everyone’s eye rolls (which he could feel even over text from many miles away), asked the right questions at the right times, and, most fundamentally, no matter how near or far geographically he may have been, was always present and supportive of his kids and their lives and aspirations.
After putting in so much hard work at the office and at home, he took a well-deserved early retirement, while continuing to do some consulting for IFC. He also fulfilled his long-deferred dream of moving back to Southern California when he and Sophie moved to Ventura in 2024. While his time in Ventura was cut far too short, he truly made the most of it. He cycled up and down the coast and into the mountains, ate lots of tacos, tested out all the local coffeeshops, was able to watch his favorite sports teams in the correct time zone (including back-to-back World Series wins by the Dodgers and attending the 2024 parade with Annabelle), and volunteered for Habitat for Humanity of Ventura County, for a local food bank, as an adult literacy tutor, and as a reader of scholarship applications for UCLA. He also took advantage of his early retirement to read even more than he had before (which was already a lot), listen to so many podcasts, and play his favorite New York Times games.
He could intelligently converse with anyone about any topic and would actually listen to the other person’s point of view. He and Sophie made great friends all around the world, whom they happily and regularly visited (especially as of late). He was (frustratingly) good at pretty much everything he tried, like easily picking up skiing as an adult, adding proficient Spanish (and business Portuguese and brief forays into German, Swedish, and Japanese) to his language bank, never cooking a dry Thanksgiving turkey (and perfecting his Thanksgiving menu with Annabelle), writing silly holiday letters recounting the family’s adventures (from which this obituary has drawn inspiration, especially in its overuse of parentheses), and recalling both useful and useless trivia.
His wit, intellect, support and care for others, and integrity will be sorely missed. And, most of all, Sophie, Caroline, Annabelle, and Sebastien are devastated that they will never again sit down in the living room with a concert DVD everyone had watched a million times or baseball game playing in the background and just get to chat with him. He deserved more time to do that (and many other things), and so did we.
He is predeceased by his mother Margaret Hukki and aunt Michele Norlin. He is survived by, among many others, his wife Sophie and children Caroline, Annabelle, and Sebastien; his brother Lawrence; his uncles Pete (Gail) and Bobby (Donna) Hukki; his aunts Lisa (Nick) Kritselis, Anne (David) Matano, and Priscilla Hukki; his Leahy cousins Jessica (Jason) Vroman and Jacqueline (Matt) Sugarman (and their kids); his Hukki cousins; his brothers- and sisters-in-law Denis Huré and Michala Holm and Laurence and Nathan Frey; and his nieces and nephews Marion Frey, Jonathan Frey, Philippa Huré, and Gabriella Huré.
Memorial gatherings are being planned for May 8, 2026 in the D.C. metro area and May 10, 2026 in Paris. More details to come. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the organizations he most recently volunteered for: Habitat for Humanity of Ventura County, Food Share of Ventura County, and the UCLA Alumni Scholarships General Fund.
He was born on November 29, 1966 in Portland, Maine and split his colorful childhood among Northern California, Santa Monica, and Downeast Maine, following his mother Margaret around the country along with his older brother Butch. His happiest childhood moments were those spent in Santa Monica, where he developed his lifelong love of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Lakers, and Southern California more broadly. And so, after graduating as valedictorian from Washington Academy in East Machias, Maine in 1983, he headed back to Southern California to major in Political Science and French at the University of California, Los Angeles, becoming a family trend-setter in that regard (his mother and daughter Caroline both followed him to UCLA at different times) and turning his future family into big UCLA sports fans (Go Bruins). (We suggest that any basketball fans watch a UCLA men’s or women’s basketball game in his honor. His wife Sophie and his daughters Caroline and Annabelle did so in person on January 3 and watched the women crush their rivals USC.)
During his college years, he also spent a year in Bordeaux, France, laying the foundation for his eventually near-perfect French, which would helpfully impress his future French in-laws and endlessly confuse people who struggled to identify where he was from. (Belgium seemed to be a popular guess. But nope, he was just really annoyingly good at languages.) He also had the opportunity to travel the world for the first time that year, hitchhiking as far north as Finland and having his belongings stolen from trains as far south as Italy.
Upon his 1987 graduation from UCLA, he moved to New York to attend Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, earning a master’s degree in International Affairs while continuing to work far too many hours to pay his own way through school (as he had at UCLA).
He then started his career in finance at Manufacturers Hanover Bank—which became, during his tenure, Chemical Bank and then Chase Manhattan Bank—spending ten years there working in a variety of positions in telecoms finance, leveraged finance, general corporate, and investment banking in New York, Paris, and London. (Yes, this part was stolen from his LinkedIn.) It was during that time that he met his wife Sophie over intra-office email before beginning a cross-English Channel courtship (with Patrick in Paris and Sophie in London) that they kept a secret from their shared secretary (very scandalous). Once they married in 1994, they settled in London and both continued to work for Chase, as they welcomed their first two kids, Caroline and Annabelle.
In 1999, they decided to make a big move to Bethesda, Maryland, after Patrick had secured a job in nearby Washington, D.C. at the International Finance Corporation—the private-sector arm of the World Bank Group focused on impact investing in emerging markets. He ended up working at IFC for nearly 25 years, working in sectors as varied as telecoms, health and education, tourism, and manufacturing in regions as varied as Asia Pacific and Latin America (as well as globally). At IFC, he was able to travel the world (e.g., going to Mongolia and tasting attempts to make dried yak cheese curds crispier to appeal to a younger, potato chip loving audience) and work on rewarding projects, while (according to the outpouring of messages we’ve received from his former colleagues) becoming a much-appreciated and respected mentor and thoughtful and intelligent leader (he would have cringed at this but, sorry, it’s true). He, Sophie, and third kid Sebastien (born not long after the move to Bethesda) spent a great three years (four for Patrick) living in Hong Kong during his time as Regional Head of Industry, Manufacturing, Agribusiness, and Services, Asia Pacific.
And while he was working hard and making a difference in the lives of others, he always made time to be an amazing dad (by any measure, but certainly for someone who had no father to look to as a role model). He would do things like drive eight hours to pick Caroline up from her house during COVID and end up beating her and her roommates at both Scrabble and darts (even though they, unlike him, had been practicing both for weeks), take long road trips to visit colleges with Sebastien and sneak in a U.S. men’s national soccer team game, and fly from California to D.C. to load up a car with Annabelle’s stuff from a storage unit and drive it up to Boston before flying right back across the country. He patiently coached soccer teams, instilled great music taste in his kids (causing them to be decades younger than anyone else at a James Taylor and Carole King or Eagles concert in 2007 and excited to experience the Newport Folk Festival in 2022) while also allowing the kids to put on their own favorites, drove and flew thousands of miles to be at everything from Caroline’s and Annabelle’s 5:15 P.M. basketball and lacrosse games across awful D.C. rush hour traffic to Annabelle’s college basketball games in Minnesota’s frigid January and Sebastien’s soccer games in Vietnam and China, made dad jokes and puns so bad that he would make himself cry of laughter at the terribleness of the jokes and the strength of everyone’s eye rolls (which he could feel even over text from many miles away), asked the right questions at the right times, and, most fundamentally, no matter how near or far geographically he may have been, was always present and supportive of his kids and their lives and aspirations.
After putting in so much hard work at the office and at home, he took a well-deserved early retirement, while continuing to do some consulting for IFC. He also fulfilled his long-deferred dream of moving back to Southern California when he and Sophie moved to Ventura in 2024. While his time in Ventura was cut far too short, he truly made the most of it. He cycled up and down the coast and into the mountains, ate lots of tacos, tested out all the local coffeeshops, was able to watch his favorite sports teams in the correct time zone (including back-to-back World Series wins by the Dodgers and attending the 2024 parade with Annabelle), and volunteered for Habitat for Humanity of Ventura County, for a local food bank, as an adult literacy tutor, and as a reader of scholarship applications for UCLA. He also took advantage of his early retirement to read even more than he had before (which was already a lot), listen to so many podcasts, and play his favorite New York Times games.
He could intelligently converse with anyone about any topic and would actually listen to the other person’s point of view. He and Sophie made great friends all around the world, whom they happily and regularly visited (especially as of late). He was (frustratingly) good at pretty much everything he tried, like easily picking up skiing as an adult, adding proficient Spanish (and business Portuguese and brief forays into German, Swedish, and Japanese) to his language bank, never cooking a dry Thanksgiving turkey (and perfecting his Thanksgiving menu with Annabelle), writing silly holiday letters recounting the family’s adventures (from which this obituary has drawn inspiration, especially in its overuse of parentheses), and recalling both useful and useless trivia.
His wit, intellect, support and care for others, and integrity will be sorely missed. And, most of all, Sophie, Caroline, Annabelle, and Sebastien are devastated that they will never again sit down in the living room with a concert DVD everyone had watched a million times or baseball game playing in the background and just get to chat with him. He deserved more time to do that (and many other things), and so did we.
He is predeceased by his mother Margaret Hukki and aunt Michele Norlin. He is survived by, among many others, his wife Sophie and children Caroline, Annabelle, and Sebastien; his brother Lawrence; his uncles Pete (Gail) and Bobby (Donna) Hukki; his aunts Lisa (Nick) Kritselis, Anne (David) Matano, and Priscilla Hukki; his Leahy cousins Jessica (Jason) Vroman and Jacqueline (Matt) Sugarman (and their kids); his Hukki cousins; his brothers- and sisters-in-law Denis Huré and Michala Holm and Laurence and Nathan Frey; and his nieces and nephews Marion Frey, Jonathan Frey, Philippa Huré, and Gabriella Huré.
Memorial gatherings are being planned for May 8, 2026 in the D.C. metro area and May 10, 2026 in Paris. More details to come. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the organizations he most recently volunteered for: Habitat for Humanity of Ventura County, Food Share of Ventura County, and the UCLA Alumni Scholarships General Fund.
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