Children of Mayor Richard M. Daley: Patrick Daley
THE SOLDIER | Mayor's son joined the Army after working for father's backers
As the son and grandson of legendary Chicago mayors, Patrick Daley has at times found himself in the spotlight:
• As a teenager, his antics embarrassed his father, who wept as he apologized about a party his son threw 16 years ago at the family's Grand Beach, Mich., home, where another boy was struck in the head with a baseball bat.
(Antonio Dickey photo)
• Four years ago, he stunned the city by enlisting in the Army, just months after getting an MBA from the University of Chicago.
• In December, the city's inspector general and the FBI opened an investigation of his secret investment in a sewer company with city contracts.
Over the years, Patrick Daley, 32, has cultivated business relationships with his father's friends and political allies.
While rehabbing a Little Italy three-flat eight years ago, he apparently got free use of a state-owned truck from developer Oscar D'Angelo.
Daley went to work for an investment firm owned by millionaire Blair Hull, who ran for the U.S. Senate, with the mayor's blessing, and lost.
The mayor's son moved to Cardinal Growth, an investment firm owned by his father's friend Robert Bobb.
Bobb helped set up Municipal Sewer Services, which got millions of dollars of work from City Hall -- and violated a city ordinance by failing to disclose that its investors included the mayor's son and nephew, Robert Vanecko, who invested a total of $65,000 in 2003. They cashed out a year later at an undisclosed profit.
Patrick Daley was working for Bobb when he became an investor in Chicago Concourse Development, a company picked by City Hall to provide wireless Internet service at O'Hare and Midway airports. The company has been sold.
Daley is friends with some of Chicago's youngest and richest -- such as Matthew Pritzker, whose family owns Hyatt hotels.
The mayor's son is also friends with Sean Conlon, an Irish immigrant who made a fortune in Chicago real estate. Conlon, who has raised money for the mayor's campaign fund, didn't want to say much about the mayor's son, whom he called "a wonderful chap."
Patrick Daley is also a friend of Symon Garber, a Russian businessman who ran a fleet of cabs in Moscow and New York.
"Me and Patrick are very good acquaintances,'' Garber said. "We met in Russia somewhere in August 2001.''
Two years later, Garber won City Hall's permission to operate Chicago Carriage Cab Co. He started with 200 of his company's signature maroon-colored cabs. Today, Garber has 800 taxicabs -- the city's largest fleet -- operating under the names Chicago Carriage Cab Co. and Royal 3 CCC.
"Patrick didn't help me with anything," Garber said. "The only business deals were with a bottle of vodka. Patrick is an excellent guy. Great drinker, knows how to hold his liquor. We played some rugby. He has a great sense of humor."
Home: Her parents' South Loop town house
Occupation: A board member of AACTION Autism, a not-for-profit group that works with autistic children worldwide. She also volunteers at the University of Illinois at Chicago's Department of Psychiatry, working with Dr. Bennett Leventhal, a national expert on autism.
Marital status: Single
Died: 1981, from complications of spina bifida.