Obituary of Patrick Timothy Gilmore

Patrick Gilmore, 95, of Hilton Head Island died at The Preston in The Cypress on April 28, 2023.  He  was born in Brooklyn NY on January 14, 1928. 

Patrick’s wife was Jean Adele Combes who lived from 1925-2015. Together they had eight children and is survived by seven, 19 grandchildren, and 7 great-grandchildren.

 Pat and Jean moved to Hilton Head Plantation in 1995. For fifteen years prior to that, they lived in Basking Ridge, N.J. They were both originally from New York.

 Pat earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from St. John's University in New York.  Following a tour of duty in the Army from 1946-48, he was recalled to serve for the Korean War and honorably discharged in 1952. 

He went into public accounting, spending five years with Arthur Young & Company serving clients in many different industries and was a senior on the audit staff. The engagements included both large and small, public and private firms and included a heavy dose of acquisitions and SEC work. He left to go into private corporate work with a client.

For twelve years he was with Ferro Union Corporation in New York City, an international steel-trading firm where he progressed to Vice President. Pat then joined the management of Brother International Corporation where he remained for twenty-five years.

Pat started as Treasurer became Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President and then President until he retired in 1994. During those years he served on the boards of Brother’s US companies as well as several of their overseas companies. After retiring he was retained by Brother as an advisor for five years until the age of 70.

Always generous with his time and money, Pat has served as a Director of United Way of Central New Jersey, he was Director of a trade advocacy group in Washington, D.C. and worked with various Chambers of Commerce.  He was the water commissioner for Hilton Head, a Grand Knight of the Knights of Columbus and a regular donor to various charities. He was also a very active parishioner at St. Francis by the Sea.

A funeral service will be held at St. Francis by the Sea Catholic Church, Hilton Head, SC on May 9 at 10:00am.  Donations may be made to Boy’s Town https://support.boystown.org/site/Donation or Semper FI  & America’s Fund https://thefund.org/donate/.