Richard Schindler loved to climb onto a bike.
Several years ago, he biked 2,900 miles from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. He helped found a bicycling club for students at Austin High School. Recently retired after 42 years with the Mayo Clinic, he was biking to meet a friend last Saturday. Together, they would clear grass from a new bike path west of Riverland Community College.
But Schindler was found off the trail, dying of injuries sustained in a fall, according to Austin police.
Schindler, 72, began his life in medicine in 1972, seeing the first of what would become decades of patients at Mayo Clinic Health System in Austin and Adams, Minn.
"Words can't even express the impact he had on the community," said Tammy Kritzer, operations administrator at the clinic. It's hard to say how many babies he delivered, she said, "but the number I've been hearing is 4,000."
After starting in Austin, Schindler moved his practice about 20 miles southwest to the much smaller town of Adams, Minn.
"Some patients who had been seeing him in Austin would drive down to see him in Adams, they were so loyal to him," Kritzer said. "It wouldn't surprise me if every single person in the Adams community saw him at one time or another."
True to form, Schindler often would bike between his home in Austin and the clinic in Adams, she said.
Schindler was born Feb. 23, 1942, in Fargo, N.D., He married Belita Softing there in July of 1964. After completing medical school at University of North Dakota, the University of Iowa Medical School and the U.S. Air Force Academy hospital in Colorado, he joined the Austin Medical Clinic in 1972.
He served as department chair for family medicine and worked on many committees, including infection prevention and control, sports medicine and pharmaceutical formulary. The Schindler Library at the Austin medical center was named to recognize his impact as committee chair for continuing medical education, a position he held from 1973 to 2009.
In 2007, he was among those who helped identify a mysterious nerve condition affecting workers at a meatpacking plant in Austin, after taking the time to listen to the concerns of an interpreter for many of the non-English-speaking workers. "He valued everyone's opinion, never brushed anybody off," Kritzer said. The condition eventually was linked to a disease caused by inhaling pig brain matter during the slaughter process.
Schindler received the Minnesota Family Physician of the Year award in 1993.
In the community, Schindler was a leader in a variety of efforts, including helping develop the new ArtWorks Center; with his wife, Belita, donating funds to the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center to develop free cross-country ski trails; serving as chairman of the YMCA, and working on the Vision 2020 project to best position Austin for the future.
"He's been the friend available to anyone and everyone," said Marvin Repinski, his brother-in-law. "He was very influential in the community. It's just one of those unbelievable deaths."
He is survived by his wife, Belita, of Austin; four children, Erik, Liesl, Isaac and Erin; nine grandchildren, two brothers, one sister and extended family. A mass of Christian burial will be at 11 a.m. Thursday at St. Augustine Catholic Church in Austin, followed by a memorial service at the Austin YMCA. Memorials may be directed to the YMCA of Austin.
