Pat Neale — Marco's Own '007? Naw

A Marco Island man who has a zillion frequent flyer miles and hopscotches the world on business still has nightmares about a harrowing airline experience.

"It was on Aeroflot, the Russian airline, in 1992 and it was the worst," says Marco attorney, civic activist and international businessman Pat Neale.

On a freezing night, Pat sat on the plane watching Aeroflot de-ice its wings. The scary part was that the "de-icing" was being done by babushkas, elderly Russian women, brushing the snow off the wings with brooms.

When Pat decided to sit back and hope for the best, he reached for his seat belt.

"It was there, but with no buckle on it. So I had to tie a square knot in the belt."

He did and lived to tell the tale.

Pat still goes to Russia often and to China and other places for his plastics, chemical and petroleum product trading company.

Are you suspicious? Is Neale an espionage agent maybe? Consider the facts:

He goes to exotic, mysterious, occasionally troublesome countries, not just to their capitals, but to the outbacks and the boonies, sometimes on long rides through the night on rickety trains, their whistles wailing, breaking the eerie silence like a scene that didn't make the final cut of "Dr. Zhivago."

He can order dinner in six languages and discuss secret stuff in at least three.

He has his own, private, skilled nurse. Lots of spies have that, don't they, for patching up mysterious, if minor, wounds and ammo graze marks?

OK, so the nurse is his wife, Mary. Her cover is her job at the Marco Healthcare Center. Hmmmm.

He also has a cell phone. Maybe two. And a pager.

Secret sources tell me that Pat was in China right before that communist country's leader, President HuJintao, came to the United States, right into the heart of the White House.

Coincidence? I think not.

However, I promised Pat I'd not make too much of his secret espionage career path, so let's just say he is, um, very, very, um, interesting.

And hard working.

And dedicated to helping make Marco and Collier County a better place.

He was born, raised and educated in Miami, but ended up in Marco via a circuitous route, including career stops in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and California.

Pat met Mary while vacationing on St. Maarten/St.Martin in the Caribbean.

In a club there one night, Pat saw a woman enter, walk up to the bar and tell the bartender, "a Scotch and a pack of Marlboros."

Photo by CHRIS CURLE, Marco Eagle

Pat Neale, president of Youth Haven, on the campus of the children's emergency shelter in Naples.

Says Pat, "It was love at first sight." They discovered they were neighbors up north and their chance meeting eased into a long-term relationship.

When Pat was offered a job on Marco Island as an outside counsel for Deltona Corporation, he and Mary married and spent their honeymoon moving here in 1987.

Career aside, Pat relaxes as a gourmet cook and by riding his bike about 100 miles a week. Amidst all that, he has amassed an impressive list of civic activities, including presidencies of the United Way and the Marco Island Chamber of Commerce.

Right now, much of his time and talent in helping others is focused on a remarkable social program in East Naples called "Youth Haven."

It offers all sorts of help and encouragement to children up to age 12 who've had it rough, sometimes excruciatingly rough, some of whom authorities had to remove from their parents' custody for the children's protection.

Neale is president of Youth Haven.

"We house the kids in a shelter, including one 3-year-old who had suffered heart wrenching abuse," he says. "The first thing we try to do is to get them their humanity back, their self-esteem. We feed them, get them to school and on field trips. We let them know they have worth."

The essence of Youth Haven was summed up by one small boy, abused and neglected. Asked what he thought of Youth Haven, he said, simply, "It's my home."

Federal and state grants account for about 20 percent of Youth Haven's, budget, but more help is needed. A lot more. Children's lives and futures are at stake. Pat is passionate about this cause.

"Collier is the only county in the state of Florida that provides zero dollars for social service agencies," he says. "There's just no political will here to do it."

Youth Haven, unique in the five county region it serves, is in some ways a secret. So Pat is working hard to tell Youth Haven's story of sheltering and nurturing children and families at risk.

Neale also loves Marco Island and has a wide array of friends here.

"Some come here and just want to play golf or sit. But many eagerly get involved in good causes," he says, summing things up this way:

"For many, Marco's a nice place to live, but it's not home. We'll know that we've created a sense of community when people want to be buried here.

"When they no longer want to be shipped home to be buried, it'll show they've really adopted the community."