Pamela P Beattie

Pamela Pash Beattie died peacefully at her home in Austin, Texas on June 26, 2021 from complications of breast cancer at the age of 77. Pam is survived by her son, John Beattie, of San Francisco, CA, and her sister, Margaret Pash (“Meg”), of Springfield, MA.

Pam was born in May, 1944 in Tucson, AZ, but she didn’t stay there long. Her father, Lt. Col. Robert N. Pash (“Bobby”) was a career officer in the U.S. Air Force, and her mother, Patricia Greenwood Pash (“Pat”), was an officer’s wife, responsible for making a home for the family wherever Bobby was stationed, becoming especially skilled in negotiating Byzantine military bureaucracies. Pam, and later Meg, was a quintessential “military brat” who, by the age of 16, had lived in Hazleton, PA; Denver, CO; Fort Worth, TX; Altus, OK; Montgomery, AL; Sacramento, CA; and London, England, where she attended Central High School (Bushy Park Air Force Base).

After graduating from Bushy Park in 1962, Pam returned to the States to attend Penn State University in State College. There, she met and married Charles Beattie, of Louisville, KY. The couple moved to Philadelphia in 1965 where Pam gave birth to their son, John, and then finished up her Bachelor of Arts degree at Temple University. The young family moved to the Bronx, in New York City, where Pam began her career in banking and financial services at the Bank of New York.

Pam and Charles divorced in 1968 and shared custody of John. In 1972, Charles moved back to Kentucky to start medical school, while Pam and John moved to San Antonio, TX, to be closer to her parents. There, Pam worked for Moneymasters, Inc., where she began to specialize in the administration of corporate pension and profit sharing plans and their compliance with federal “ERISA” regulations.. Five years later, Pam leveraged that specialization to return to the East Coast as the head of Mid-market Sales and Services for Defined Benefit Plans at Bankers Trust (BT). She and John settled into a flat in Allendale, NJ, an hour commute to Manhattan for her, but a short walk for John to one of the best public high schools in the region.

When John graduated high school in 1983 and moved to California to attend UC Berkeley, Pam moved into a comfortable apartment in midtown Manhattan.

Back when she was 28, a single mother with a child in first grade and uncertain job opportunities, Pam had to leave New York and rely on family support. A decade later,at the age of 37, having raised a son and laid down a promising career path, Pam returned to hold the Big Apple in her hand once again, and this time, she took a really big bite. She lived and worked in Manhattan for another 5 years, on her way to becoming Vice President at Bankers Trust.

After New York, Pam was tapped to build a new business unit for BT in Houston, TX. In 1988, she incorporated the Texas Trust Company as its sole officer, and over the next 8 years, she landed big name customers like Texas Instruments and Mary Kay Cosmetics and built a sales and operations team that managed over $15 billion in retirement assets. Pam left BT in 1996 and joined Merrill Lynch Retirement Services in Denver, where she built a new Relationship Management group, and then moved to San Francisco where she helped integrate a newly acquired $17-billion company.

In 2001, after working in financial services for over 30 years, Pam retired and moved to Austin, TX. While she continued to do financial services consulting through Oculus Partners, Pam turned her focus to a new business venture with Meg. The sisters launched Mugglestone, where Pam designed and made award-winning jewelry. (Mugglestone was the maiden name of the sisters’ stylish and stern maternal grandmother.)

While living in the Southwest, Pam cultivated a passion for original art and jewelry. She especially loved works by and about Native Americans and by local artists in the places she lived. One of her happiest pastimes was touring the Native American pueblos and art festivals around Denver, Santa Fe, Mesa Verde, and Canyon DeChelly with her friends and family, sharing the region’s deep history and traditions, promising art and artists, and satisfying food and drink.

She was a voracious reader of historical and political non-fiction, biographies, mysteries, science fiction, and thrillers, and she could quote the poetry of Ogden Nash on demand. She loved watching cheesy monster movies with a bag of microwave popcorn and a couple dogs at her feet, as much as she did getting drinks at “21” after catching a Broadway play.

For the past 11 years, Pam’s most faithful and constant companion was her Scottish Terrier, Harry. He alerted her to danger, and stayed by her side through thick and thin. Harry was the last in a long line of family dogs who Pam remembered with great love including Fritz, Tara, Nicker, Mac (“Porkchop”), Mac (II), Harvey, Rufus, Mac (III), Barney, Bugsy, Georges and Harry.

Pam was lucky to have shared many adventures, high and low, with dear and true friends Cecily Raiborn, Annie Kopanski, Cynthia Hayes, and Diane Cenko. The family suggests remembrances for Pam be made in the form of contributions to Austin Humane Society or the Susan G. Koman Breast Cancer Foundation.