Dr. Thomas Older, a retired cardiac surgeon, who died Aug. 13 at 90, celebrates with his daughter, Shannon Older, who in 2020 became the 76th president of the Fort Orange Club in Albany and its first female president since the club's founding in 1880.

Dr. Richard Dal Col, a cardiac surgeon trained at Albany Med by Dr. Thomas Older, draws laughter and applause with his reminiscences about Older at a Fort Orange Club reception on Monday.

Dr. Thomas Older, right, is applauded by his wife, Anne, left, and other members of his family before being presented with the American Heart Association’s inaugural Heart Hero Award during the March 5, 2011 Hearts on Fire celebration. Dr. Older performed Albany’s first coronary bypass surgery in 1970, and developed the cardiothoracic field in the Capital Region. Older died at 90 on Aug. 13. (Photo by Joe Putrock/Special to the Times Union)

ALBANY — The first time I met Dr. Thomas Older, in 1995, he was standing high atop the roof of his Potsdam sandstone 19th-century mansion on Englewood Place, along the western edge of Washington Park, replacing red clay Spanish tiles.

He gave me a friendly wave.

Like it was the most natural thing in the world for the dean of the Capital Region’s cardiac surgeons — who performed the first coronary artery surgery at Albany Medical Center and thousands more open-heart surgeries — wielding hammer and nail high atop a gable.

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A former patient who witnessed the incongruous scene asked: “Why is my surgeon with his million-dollar hands working as a roofer?”

The day Older died at 90 on Aug. 13 at Abany Med, where he had mentored dozens of cardiac surgeons, he requested an emergency heart valve replacement. A valve that had been surgically replaced more than a decade earlier was failing, causing severe breathing problems. The surgery was unsuccessful.

“A colleague said he was giving orders right to the end,” said his daughter, Shannon Older. “We were so grateful he did not suffer. We are feeling the loss and a void in our lives, but we feel so lucky he was with us for 90 years and left such an imprint.”

Older’s father, Dr. Laurence Older, was a general practitioner and surgeon in the small Allegany County town of Cuba, along the Southern Tier. His medical office was in the family home and he set up beds in a........

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