Richard D. Tinsley

Richard Donald Tinsley, B.S. ’63, passed away Jan. 9. Born in Houston July 13, 1938, he was the middle of three sons born to Willard Merle Tinsley and Margie Bosley Tinsley.

Tinsley’s lifelong love of athletics landed him on the Lamar High School basketball team, where he was the leading scorer in the city his senior year with a 20-point average. In 1957 he signed with Baylor University. Tinsley’s teammates nicknamed him “Pogo” because of his jumping ability. He was inducted into the Baylor Athletics Hall of Fame in 2004.

Tinsley married Emily George in 1960. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree at Baylor and then attended physical therapy school in Dallas. After Tinsley finished school, he and Emily returned to Houston and raised two daughters, Robyn and Allison.

In 1965, Tinsley recognized a need to provide hospitals with fully staffed physical therapy departments and founded Tinsley Physical Therapy. He built TPT into one of the largest privately owned therapy contracting companies in the country, and he was widely credited with creating the model for successful management of PT services.

Throughout his life, Tinsley was actively involved with an array of healthcare, community, athletic and social organizations. He could always be counted on to come up with ideas on how to make life more fun for himself and everyone around him. He was devoted to Emily and his daughters, loved to travel, had a standing Monday night outing with treasured friends and was always ready to go out for dinner and a show.