Chattanooga business leader Z. Cartter Patten dies at age 82

Staff File Photo / Cartter Patten, III
Staff File Photo / Cartter Patten, III

Z. Cartter Patten III, a leading investment adviser and environmental philanthropist whose family helped start several long-time Chattanooga businesses, died Thursday night at his Ashland Farm home in Flintstone, Georgia. He was 82.

Patten, a retired chartered financial analyst and investment adviser, started one of the first investment advisory firms in Chattanooga in 1971 after serving in the investment division of the former Volunteer State Life Insurance Co., which was founded by his grandfather.

Patten and his twin brother, Bryan, headed the Patten & Patten investment firm for 43 years before the brothers agreed to go their separate ways in 2014 and Cartter Patten joined with his daughter, Ashlee, to start the Patten Group Inc., headquartered in the Volunteer Building.

Ashlee said Friday that her father "passed away last night as gently and gracefully as he lived" surrounded by his whole family. She said Cartter Patten "lived a thoughtful, deliberative and purposeful life that was rich with opportunities and accomplishments."

Like his father -- a former Tennessee state senator, business owner and conservationist -- Cartter Patten was a lifelong environmentalist and Democrat who served on the boards of American Rivers, the American Chestnut Foundation, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and the Bieler School of Environment advisory board at McGill University. He also was a co-founder of North River Nursery and helped raise funds to plant the trees along Broad Street in downtown Chattanooga as well as preserving ponds and marshes near the family's summer home in Maine.

Mickey Robbins, an investment adviser who worked with Patten for more than three decades and shared many hunting and outdoor adventures, said in a telephone interview Friday that Patten "was one of the most generous, kind and thoughtful people I know."

In Chattanooga, Patten previously served as a director for the former First Federal Savings and Loan Association, the Chattanooga Choo Choo, Chubb Life America and the Times Printing Co. In the nonprofit sector, Patten chaired the board for The Bright School and was on the boards for the Trust for Public Lands, Friends of North Chickamauga Creek, Reflection Riding, the Adult Education Council and the Tennessee Episcopal Endowment Commission.

Patten's grandfather, Zeboim Cartter Patten, who died in 1925, was a former American Civil War captain with the 115th Illinois Infantry who came to Chattanooga after the war and helped found the Volunteer Life Insurance Co., The Stone Fort Land Co., The T.H. Payne Co. and, most notably, the Chattanooga Medicine Co., which later become Chattem, which was acquired in 2009 by international health care giant Sanofi, which is based in Paris.

Cartter Patten is survived by his wife, Lee Weigel Patten, and his daughters, Ashlee Bryan Patten, Bethany Patten Neal and Avery Cartter Patten Barron.

A funeral service for Patten will be at 11 a.m. Dec. 12 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church with a reception following the service in the Green Room of the Read House Hotel. The Heritage Funeral Home in Fort Oglethorpe is handling the arrangements.

– Compiled by Dave Flessner


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