It’s with a heavy heart that we grieve the loss of our friend, mentor, and former business partner, Woody Hydrick, who passed away at the age of 51 on March 17, 2020. Our team has been mourning the loss of our longtime, dear friend as best we’re able while we have all been separated as we work remotely.
Woody, through his work at Fluor and Cushman and Wakefield, was a pioneer in a new way of thinking about economic development. It was his desire to continue to grow and find new ways of helping to scale enterprise businesses through site selection and consulting that ultimately led Woody to be a partner at Global Location Strategies.
Woody and I first met in 2000 when GLS was a division within the Fluor Corporation. My fondest memories were working on a biotech project in the Pacific Northwest where we made up a song to the Beach Boys song Kokomo where we changed all of the place names to PNW. I only remember the first few lines.
Snohomish, Vancouver, ooh I want to take ya
to Puyallup, Tacoma, come on pretty mama.
Hillsboro, Mulkiteo, baby why don’t we go.
We became business partners in 2013 and together we grew the GLS business. Woody was a fantastic mentor to our young staff- Catalina Valencia, John Longshore and Monty Turner, and their deep knowledge and strong reputation are in large part due to Woody’s patient instruction and guidance.
Through Woody’s work, billions of dollars were invested and thousands of jobs were created in communities across the globe, in many major verticals including pharmaceuticals, automotive, steel, chemicals, and consumer products. He and his various teams and partners contributed extensively to our purpose of matching companies and communities for sustainable, long-term success.
Those years working with Woody was a pleasure, as I not only partnered with him, but learned from him as well. His spirit of championing growth, coupled with his business acumen and friendly personality ultimately led to him being invited to join the Site Selectors Guild in 2017 for being a leader in our industry.
While the world is sequestered at home during this time, we were especially saddened on hearing the news that Woody passed away last week. At 51, he had not only given the world so much already — he had so much left to give, as was not only evident by his enthusiasm for his most recent role with the Prattville Area Chamber of Commerce in Alabama as their Economic Development Director, but also his continued excitement and desire to lead groups and speaking events to educate the community on the benefits of aggressive economic development. Personally, his humor was only matched in volume by his story telling and his love of football. But his true love was reserved for his beautiful family, with whom I was lucky enough to know for so long and considered friends. As we mourn with his wife Stephanie and their two sons, I am reminded of his abundant love for them. I recall, when Sam was a tiny thing, Woody telling me that he had gone home the night before and found Steph and Sam doing an exercise video, but Sam was buck naked. Woody thought it was hilarious, but Sam was completely unphased. He was so proud of Sam and Jake as they matured and have become young men themselves.
Woody will be sorely missed by all of us here at GLS, and by all the GLS and Fluor alumni who knew him. We will honor him today and always by continuing the legacy he contributed to for more than two decades, to connect companies and communities for long-term economic prosperity.
– Didi