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Patrick Kelly: <br />Driven to Serve <br />With deep roots in St. Paul, MSBA's new president Patrick Kelly has <br />pursued interests and commitments that bond him firmly to his family, his <br />firm, and his community and support him in a career that involves clients <br />locally, nationally, and across the world. <br />atrick Kelly's St. Paul office is <br />deceptively low -key. A model boat <br />on an end table, the requisite wall <br />of diplomas, a desk piled high with <br />paper ... except for a handful of family <br />photos stationed here and there, it could <br />be the office of any lawyer in the country. <br />A small, antique globe gives the only hint <br />of the firm's international reach. <br />Even the attorney behind the desk <br />looks like the standard model: suit, tie, <br />white shirt, silver hair ... and then he <br />opens his mouth and the stories begin to <br />flow. There was the time he was stopped <br />by the British Army on his motorcycle at <br />a roadblock in Ireland during "The <br />18 Bench &Bar of Minnesota A July 2006 <br />BY AMY LINDGREN <br />Troubles" in that country. And the time <br />he was stranded in the Bahamas during <br />college and had to talk his way home mile <br />by mile without a penny in his pocket. <br />And the time he almost crashed an air- <br />plane at the downtown St. Paul airport. <br />That last one is a good one. Kelly was <br />a young lawyer, not long married, with a <br />yen for adventure. Flying lessons seemed <br />like a safe enough outlet for a man with <br />responsibilities. On this particular day, <br />the goal was to sharpen his takeoffs and <br />landings, down at Holman Field. His wife <br />Mary was waiting for him in the small <br />building that serves as the municipal air- <br />port's lobby and business office. <br />Now the story splits in two. From Pat's <br />perspective, the situation was perhaps <br />serious, but not dire. He brought the <br />plane in too low, or perhaps too fast, or ... <br />in any case, the stall lights came on and <br />he was losing control of the plane and it <br />would take a fair piece of effort and per- <br />haps prayer to bring it right before it <br />would crash into the runway or perhaps <br />even the tenninal. <br />Mary, sitting in the lobby with a host <br />of experienced air personnel, had the <br />benefit of their gasps and exclamations, <br />not to mention the cacophony of alarms <br />ringing throughout the building to help <br />her gauge the seriousness of the situation. <br />www.mnbar.org <br />