Philanthropist, Businessman Mark Sathe - Though legally blind and stricken with cancer, the St. Louis Park resident made it a priority to help others.

ST. LOUIS PARK, Minnesota (Star Tribune), October 7, 2007:

Although legally blind since birth, St. Louis Park business owner Mark Sathe believed he was lucky. Sathe, a hard-working civic volunteer and owner of Sathe Executive Search, died this week of malignant melanoma in Brooklyn Center. The longtime St. Louis Park resident was 59.

Sathe attended the Minnesota State Academy for the Blind in Faribault. He grew up among adults who made their living helping people, said his wife, Ginny, of St. Louis Park. "They pushed him to be all he could be," she said. "He never felt like he was disadvantaged."

While growing up in Jackson, Minn., he learned to be a nurturing adult from his father, a funeral director, who taught him how to help people through difficult times.

The result was a life spent helping his employees, the needy and anyone who called. Over the years, he won many awards for his civic activism and philanthropy, including the Boy Scouts of America's highest honor for adults, the Silver Beaver Award, and several awards for volunteerism from the Twin West Chamber of Commerce, as well as its 1987 Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

He helped children at the Academy for the Blind, women who were former prisoners living in halfway housing in St. Louis Park, Boy Scouts with disabilities and a Marine veterans' organization helping the blind in Vietnam.

After graduating from St. Cloud State University, he founded his own company, Sathe Executive Search, in 1974.

Around 2000, he had malignant melanoma diagnosed. Over the next four years, he beat back the cancer.

'No one is this generous'

Greg Albrecht of Eden Prairie, now a senior partner in Sathe's firm, recalled being a new employee and telling his wife, "No one is this generous, this nice, this positive."

Sathe started mornings at the office with, "'What can I do to help you?' And he meant it," Albrecht said.

In the past few years, Sathe transferred some ownership of the firm to his employees.

In 1996, he ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the Minnesota Senate.

Sathe, who could read and walk independently, could not drive but said he didn't mind.

Determined to finish

In 1997, when he ran with a guiding buddy in Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, he fell a few times. He kept getting up until he finished, Albrecht said.

He was a scuba diver and golfer, and performed with barbershop-style singing groups.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by son Jonathan of St. Louis Park; daughter Katharine Goebel of Cambridge, Minn.; mother Ruth of Jackson, Minn.; brothers David of Mankato, John of Jackson and Stephen of Incline, Nev., and one grandson.

By Ben Cohen
Copyright, The Star Tribune