Mario Pasin was low key.
He could have led with the fact that he was the owner of Radio Flyer, the West Side company that makes the iconic little red wagon, or that his father, an immigrant from Italy, started it from scratch.
But attention wasn’t his thing.
He’d show his hand occasionally in public, like when he’d chat with people pulling a wagon about how it was holding up.
Or if he learned during a conversation that someone had kids — perhaps while talking with a worker who was at his house — he’d share what it was he did for a living and ask for their address. A few days later a little red wagon would arrive in the mail.
Mr. Pasin died Aug. 18 from natural causes. He was 95.
His father, Antonio Pasin, founded the company in 1917. He’d been a wood craftsman in Italy and did odd jobs in Chicago before renting a work space and building things like furniture, wine presses and phonograph cabinets.
But little wood wagons became his best seller. The wood was eventually replaced with metal, the signature red finish was added, and his company became Radio Flyer.
The name was a combination of the two coolest high-tech inventions of the day, the radio and the airplane.
Mr. Pasin took the reins from his father and ran the company from the ’60s into the ’90s, and the family still owns it.
“I think he really viewed himself as a caretaker, a steward, rather than someone trying to maximize gains or someone seeking glory or recognition or status,” said his son Paul Pasin, former head of operations at Radio Flyer.
“He was always really proud of the products we produced and that we treated our customers and employees really well, and that’s what he thought was important,” his son Robert Pasin said. “He didn’t think growth at all costs was important.”
Mr. Pasin, like his father before him, extended zero-interest home loans to employees, one of whom, after falling on hard times and leaving the company, reached out years later to continue making payments, Paul Pasin said.
“He was just extremely generous and didn’t see a lot of distinctions between people from different walks of life. He grew up the son of first-generation immigrants, so I think he had a real compassion for people who were experiencing life in a different way.”
Mr. Pasin was also candid and sincere in sharing details about his life, which had a disarming effect that led people to be similarly open, whether in casual encounters or at the negotiating table.
It was a disposition that allowed him to determine if he was dealing with an honest person or someone he might not want to be dealing with at all, said Robert Pasin, who has been CEO of the company since his father retired and also serves as a board member of Chicago Public Media, the non-profit parent company of the Sun-Times.
In the ’90s, Robert Pasin, over his father’s objection oversaw a media campaign to draw attention to the Radio Flyer backstory, its connection to Chicago and its future as an innovator in the world of play. It resulted in construction of the world’s largest wagon, which is stationed in front of the company’s headquarters at 6515 W. Grand Ave.
“Nobody even knew we were in Chicago, we were so low profile, so I told my dad, ‘I know you don’t like it, but I’m doing it.’ And because it’s a family business you can go against the CEO because it’s your dad,” Robert Pasin said.
The strategy worked, and Mr. Pasin came around. “He said, ‘You know what, Robert, you were right. It was really a good thing.'”
Mr. Pasin was born Feb. 6, 1930, in Oak Park to Antonio and Anna Pasin, who were both originally from Italy.
He attended St. Giles Catholic School and Fenwick High School, both in Oak Park, before earning bachelor’s and law degrees from his beloved University of Notre Dame.
He later put his law knowledge to use securing patents and trademarks for the family business.
Mr. Pasin was a notably patient parent who never raised his voice or yelled unless his kids were in danger.
Robert Pasin, who was an admittedly rambunctious kid, remembered the time he put a small explosive in his father’s cigar.
“It was like something from a Bugs Bunny cartoon, totally frayed, it blew up so loud. And he literally took the cigar out of his mouth and put it in the ashtray and walked away. He was so calm,” he said.
Mr. Pasin nurtured his zen at a property in Wisconsin he bought in the ’60s that he transformed from a polluted dairy farm into a natural sanctuary by planting thousands of trees.
“That was his happy place,” Robert Pasin said.
In addition to his sons Robert and Paul, Mr. Pasin is survived by his wife of 66 years, Mary Kay, his sons Mark and Antonio Pasin, and his daughter, Therese Brandenstein, as well as nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Services have been held.