By Eliza Ridgeway

Mr. Alexander

Dan Alexander, a longtime Los Altos Hills community leader and supporter of Westwind Barn, died Nov. 9 from complications of prostate cancer. He was 90.

Mr. Alexander was raised in Salt Lake City and attended Stanford University, where he met his future wife, Margaret. He joined PG&E in 1939 as a lighting equipment salesman, moving to Los Altos Hills in 1966 when he transferred to the PG&E office in San Jose. He retired in 1981.

“PG&E and horses,” he told the Town Crier of his reasons for moving to Los Altos Hills. Alexander, who received a cavalry commission with the New Mexico Military Institute before World War II, found the young town with its horse-riding opportunities a perfect place to raise three children.

Mr. Alexander served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II and remained in the Air Force Reserves until his retirement. One of Mr. Alexander’s proud memories was an evacuation plan he developed to rescue allied prisoners of war from behind enemy lines when the war ended. He was awarded the Bronze Star for his work on the successful evacuation of 300,000 soldiers.

A longtime member of the Mountain View Rotary Club, Mr. Alexander would deliver their leftover lunches to local non-profit organizations, most recently the Mountain View Day Worker Center.

“He’s just been so patient with all of us who aren’t as patient,” remembered his friend Judy Hannemann, who described Mr. Alexander’s quiet commitment to his community, such as visits to shut-in Rotary members.

“When he started something, he wasn’t in it for the short haul,” said his son, Dan Alexander Jr. “I always think of him as someone who stirred the pot whenever he had the opportunity. Early on, he used to use that phrase ‘do a good deed every day.’ I think he tried to do that with neighbors and friends, but also in terms of volunteering.”

Mr. Alexander’s lifetime of volunteering included service on Mountain View’s United Way board of directors, the Los Altos Hills community relations committee, the Friends of Westwind Barn, the Los Altos Hills Historical Society, the Los Altos Hills Horsemen’s Association, and as a fire commissioner to the Los Altos Hills County Fire District.

Mr. Alexander said serving on the Purissima Hills Water District board of directors was the highlight of his town volunteer work. He participated for 30 years, including 18 as board president, before leaving the board in 2003.

Mr. Alexander was given a John Gardner Community Building award in 2004, and was honored this year as “Horsefather of the Century” by the Friends of Westwind Barn.

A longtime member of Fleet 4, the local Day Sailer Association, Mr. Alexander sailed for 40 years, his son reported. “At age 88 he was still sailing, skiing, horseback riding and hiking,” Alexander Jr. said.

“He had a spongelike ability to soak up atmosphere of places and teach about them,” Alexander Jr. said. “He would rent a big van and take people from the historical society on tours. In his late eighties, he chewed off a 10,000-mile road trip around the western United States.”

“I just want to be remembered as a guy who tried to do his best,” Mr. Alexander told the Town Crier earlier this year.

“You talk about someone who lived life to the fullest - he was sailing into his late 80s,” said Los Altos Hills City Councilman Mike O’Malley. “He just gave of himself, and he tried to help people get along.”

Mr. Alexander is survived by his children Dan Alexander Jr. of Palo Alto, Wendy Arthurs of San Anselmo and Nancy Nuechterlein of Marina Del Rey; and grandchildren Michael, Jennifer and Brian Alexander and Daniel, Carlin and Thomas Arthurs.

A service has not yet been scheduled. Donations in Mr. Alexander’s memory can be made to local environmental group Semper Virens at www.sempervirens.org or Pathways Hospice at www.pathwayshealth.org.