Chief Emeritus: Pat Aust’s love affair with Redondo Beach
Pat Aust in the driver’s seat of his Chevy Nomad. Photo /Civic Couch One day in 1970, a young electrician who worked for the city of Redondo Beach found himself circling the parking lot of Redondo Union High School. The school, like the city itself, was a place Pat Aust deeply loved. He’d met his wife, Linda, on the campus, and they’d married during spring break their senior year, he’d later joke, because they had “nothing better to do.” But at this moment, as he circled and circled, the quick-tempered Aust had had just about enough of the school’s parking lot. He’d arrived back at RUHS in order to join 340 other applicants testing to become a firefighter for the Redondo Beach Fire Department. He was about to abandon that plan. “Hey, I have a great job,” he thought to himself. “What do I need need this one for?” As Aust drove toward the exit, a car backed out of a parking spot in front of him. Aust pulled in and took the test. The rest is 46 years worth of one man’s history with the City of Redondo Beach — and proof that, as he said, “it’s those little things” that make the difference in life. Aust was born in 1948, in Hermosa Beach. “Eight houses out of Redondo,” he said…
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