Patrick C. Kelly*

The youngest of three children, Patrick Kelly was born in 1947 in Virginia. His father deserted the family shortly before his birth, leaving his mother to raise the children on her own. She eventually resorted to leaving them with relatives while she worked. When Kelly was five, his mother took him to the Virginia Home for Boys in Richmond, where his older brother was already living. He was the youngest boy to ever live in the orphanage and was its longest resident. The home was run by a loving couple who taught their 40 charges how to take care of themselves and their rooms. Kelly thrived under their structured guidance.

Over the years, various guardians ran the orphanage. Some were kind, and others were not, but Kelly saw all the other boys in the home as his brothers. He worked at a drug store when he was 15 and then full time for Safeway until he was 18. In 1966, he joined the U.S. Army and served a year in Vietnam. Upon his return, he used the GI bill to attend Virginia Commonwealth University. After graduation, he went to work for a medical supply company in Richmond.

Kelly followed his boss to a competitor called Intermedco and did well in developing sales. In 1982, he was offered a vice presidency, but the company was sold and the new owners were not interested in the physician market that Kelly had developed. In 1983, he formed a company with three friends, mortgaging their homes for startup money. Physician Sales and Service (PSS), Inc. became the largest distributor of medical supplies, equipment, and pharmaceuticals to primary care and other office-based physicians. PSS, which became PSS World Medical, Inc., had annual revenues of nearly $2 billion before it was acquired in 2013 by McKesson Corp. and dissolved.

Kelly was an investor in several healthcare companies and served as a trustee of the Boys Home Foundation and the Amelia Meadow Educational Trust.