In a city of millions, where knowing the right person can mean the difference between realizing a dream and watching it wither, Pat Tobin was one of the people to know.
Without the Hollywood pretense -- the air kisses, the "Have your people call my people" -- Tobin brought people together: entertainers with their audiences, sellers with buyers, communities in need with those possessing cash.
For 25 years in Los Angeles she was viewed by many as a queen of public relations, master of the fine art of networking, and guru of event planning, particularly among the city's African Americans.
The work took her across a spectrum of the city, from Hollywood to South Los Angeles. In that disparate landscape she developed a long list of clients who recognized her as a bridge linking them to whomever they needed to know. But most often they came to see her as a friend -- who happened to have one of the city's best Rolodexes.
Tobin, who was also co-founder of the National Black Public Relations Society, died of cancer Tuesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She was 65.
"She will be remembered for opening the doors to new possibilities," said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), a longtime friend. "She's a pioneer who opened up opportunities for African Americans to take on major corporate accounts in ways that had not been done before."
The first door she opened was one for herself. Patricia L. Tobin was born Feb. 28, 1943, in White Plains, N.Y., and raised there and in Philadelphia. She graduated from Overbrook High School, later earned an associate's degree from the Charles Morris Price School of Journalism and moved to Los Angeles in 1977
Tobin landed at job at KCBS-TV Channel 2 when it was still KNXT, where she organized a successful event for sportscaster Jim Hill in the early 1980s. It marked the start of her weekly Thursday "media nights" or "journalist jams," where people "would come, mix and mingle, exchange business cards and develop friendships," said Tobin's daughter, Lauren, of Panther PR.
But Tobin realized the limited opportunities for minorities in her field. It was a time when few corporations and advertisers acknowledged African American consumers and their buying power. She left her job and in 1983 started Tobin & Associates. Her then-teenage daughter was headed to college soon.
"We're going to starve," Lauren Tobin remembered saying. Pat Tobin said: "You watch."
