Philip Jay Hetzner

Philip Jay Hetzner, fourth child of Helen Joan Cundiff Hetzner and Cornelius N Hetzner II was born on March 27, 1955 in Wabash, Indiana. He attended St. Bernard's school before graduating from South Side High School in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. He graduated from Purdue University with a degree in civil engineering and from Boston University with an MBA.

Phil's college degrees provided him with the foundation for his real education. For much of his career, whether it was with oil fields in Oklahoma, gas lines and paper mills in New England, wind and solar fields in Texas, power plants in Indonesia, or helping to build out a port in Florida, his forte was becoming very knowledgeable about the technology and economics of a business quickly. For the last decade, Phil's title was Director, Project Finance, at Keystone Properties, a private port in Jacksonville, Florida. However, as Keystone's managing partner Tom Scholl and others who work at Keystone well know, Phil did not limit himself to finance. He reveled in getting concrete poured, keeping machines running, and devising a convey system that allowed for trucks, railcars, and ships to be unloaded and loaded on schedule.

Friends and family who biked, ran, trekked, or, especially, played racquetball with Phil saw a fierce competitor, especially with himself. However, after the athletics were over, those same people saw an extremely generous person--quick with a credit card, thoughtful with how he might make someone's life better, happy to surprise someone with a gift. If he saw someone whose work he respected he was known to suggest that person go into business for himself and offer up the seed money to do that.

Phil Hetzner was smart, quick-witted, generous, diligent, and, always, honorable, but his outstanding quality was his ability to love someone. He was over the moon about his daughter, Madison of Skaneateles, NY, the polestar of his life, and her fianc?, Mitchell Sobolevsky. He had many good times and special memories from his marriage to Nanette Avril of New Hampshire. In sharing recent years with Randa Follensbee of Fairfax, VA he found precious new joys. Family was extremely important to Phil. He manifested that importance with regular calls, humorous texts, reflective emails, and Odyssean road trips to visit Alicia Hetzner of Washington DC, Erika Hetzner and her husband John Hunter of New Hampshire, Mark Hetzner and his wife Chisun and their son Joey, a favored nephew, in Maine and CN Hetzner and his wife Martha Day and their children Zoe and David.

Phil Hetzner had a profound influence on many lives and, with his sudden death, will continue to have a profound influence on those aching ones he has left behind, both for the memories he helped create and for all the memories that will never be created.

Services for Phil will be held at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Wellesley, MA at 3:00 pm on Saturday December 17, 2022. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests making a donation either to The Eel River Cemetery Association, in care of Mike Hetzner at 10261 Anees Lane, Fishers, IN 46040 or St. Bernard Elementary School, 191 North Cass Street, Wabash, IN 46992.