The Outdoorsy Businessman

Pat LaMora Shares a Lifelong Passion for Nature With His Family

By Craig Reed

Fishing and bird hunting were constant activities for Pat LaMora growing up in the Eugene area.

He rode buses to fish the delta ponds in Eugene and up the McKenzie River. He rode his bike several miles to Fern Ridge Reservoir to fish for bass and carp. He and his father packed a raft and fished in the High Cascades lakes.

“Fishing was 100% my first activity,” Pat says. “Anywhere there was water, anywhere I could fish, that was my passion.”

From home, he only had to walk a half-mile out on 18th Street in West Eugene to hunt pheasants with his shotgun. He bought the gun at age 14 for $100 with money earned from his Eugene Register-Guard paper route. He would build a fire, cook a bird, and enjoy a meal.

“It was just a natural thing to do living in Oregon,” Pat says of those days about 50 years ago. “There were no video games, and I didn’t watch TV. It was not a far walk to get into the outdoors back then.”

Pat graduated from Churchill High School in 1984 and has made a career in the auto industry. He started as a lot attendant in 1986. He began working in 1990 for Kendall Auto in Eugene, and after about “10 jobs, 10 promotions,” he’s now 59 years old and the general manager of Kendall Ford in Eugene.

Although work demands a lot of time, Pat still indulges in fishing and hunting adventures.

“I love the whole process of being outdoors,” Pat says. “Everybody is busy and goal-oriented. We’ve lost the ability to appreciate moments outside.”

Pat says when his wife, Alicia, plans vacations, she usually finds water along the way for him to fish.

“She also loves the outdoors,” he says. “She loves to be by a river or lake.”

Pat’s fishing highlights include reeling in a 22-pound winter steelhead from the Umpqua River on 8-pound test line and catching a 42-pound Chinook salmon from the Siuslaw River. Also, he helped guide Alicia when she reeled in a 6-pound brook trout from Crane Prairie Reservoir.

While fishing is his favored activity, Pat has also been a hunter since his teenage years. He bought his first rifle, a 30.06, at age 21 and walked with it in downtown Eugene en route to his home. He tagged his first big game, a blacktail buck, on a Christmas tree farm in the Fox Hollow area.

In 1996, Pat gave archery hunting a try. Using a borrowed bow, he bagged a mule deer buck near Prairie City in Eastern Oregon. At that time, the buck’s antlers were measured as the 6th largest for archery in Oregon.

With an elk tag in his pocket, Pat returned to the same route the next day. Just beyond where he had taken the buck, he came around a corner, and staring at him from about 45 yards was a 5-point bull elk. He took a shot, but his arrow flew over the elk’s back.

“I totally blew the shot,” he says. “My friends were frustrated with me.”

During the 2025 archery season, Pat had another chance at filling his elk tag. At daybreak of opening day, he closed in on a couple of bulls. But as he was ready to take a shot, a flock of turkeys made its presence known with loud gobbling. The spooked bulls quickly left the area.

“I just love the majestic animals and calling them in,” Pat says. “I really enjoy being in the woods, outsmarting an animal, and being able to see it. I could probably take a camera and be just as pleased with shooting a photo. You’ve won, whether you killed it or not.”

For the past 30 years, Pat has partnered with his son, Weston, on many fishing and hunting trips. Weston, now 31, was 3 months old when he first went on a fishing trip with his dad. He remembers being 10 years old and joining Pat on a duck hunt on the Willamette River.

“Getting to share that outdoors passion with him is something special,” Weston says. “I may have taken it for granted, but now, recently, with a son myself, it puts it more into perspective the joy you get from being able to share your passion with your son.”

Pat will share some of his fishing and hunting stories, along with several Kendall Ford pickup trucks, at the Lane County Sportsmen’s and Outdoor Recreation Show at the Lane Events Center in Eugene. This will be Kendall’s 13th year of bringing outdoor-type vehicles, including a 1966 Ford Bronco, to the show that features a lineup of indoor and outdoor exhibitors and attractions.

Although Pat has made a career out of the auto industry, he admits with a smile and laugh, “I find myself being more of a pioneer than a businessman.”