Tiburon doctor developed stents used in surgery
Tiburon resident Bill Heydorn, a cardiothoracic surgeon whose work included the development of valves and stents, died of natural causes at his home Jan. 30. He was 90.
Heydorn spent nearly three decades in the U.S. Army, enlisting in 1960 and retiring as a colonel in 1989. During his military career, he was stationed in South Korea, the former West Germany, Colorado and San Francisco, where he spent 14 years at the Letterman Army Medical Center in the Presidio, eventually becoming the presiding officer.
During his time there, he was the lead author in a 1977 paper documenting how he and fellow researchers used Gore-Tex, the waterproof, breathable fabric membrane often used in rainwear, to replace valves in 33 dogs. Heydorn worked with the manufacturing company to incorporate the material into stents and valves, said his son, Will Heydorn. Today, Gore-Tex’s parent company, W.L. Gore & Associates Inc., produces thoracic stent grafts meant to repair aneurysms and transections in the thoracic aorta.
Heydorn also authored or co-authored more than 30 articles in medical journals and a medical textbook over his career.
William Howard Heydorn was born Feb. 10, 1934, in Schenectady, New York, to the Rev. William A. Heydorn and Lucille Furbeck. He had a younger sister, Lucille, and grew up in Kinderhook and Pleasantville, New York.
While the elder Heydorn was a college student, he and a friend embarked on a road trip, which they dubbed an “epochal tour,” from Michigan to New York in 1927 using a Ford Model T built from junk parts totaling $10, or about $180 in January 2025 dollars, with no top and chalked with all the cities they had visited.
The journey inspired the junior Heydorn to attend his father’s alma mater, Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where he received a bachelor’s in chemistry in 1955. At Hope, Heydorn was part of a local fraternity and played football as an offensive tackle and guard. He helped the team to a conference championship in 1953, and was named to the all-Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1953 and 1954. Heydorn received the university’s highest honor for alumni, the Distinguished Alumni Award, in 2011.
At Hope College, he met future wife Joan Kilian. They had three children together — Barbara, Kathy and Will — and were married until her death in 2003. The family moved around due to Heydorn’s military career, living in Corte Madera, Germany and Colorado before moving to Tiburon in 1975.
While he had the opportunity to play professional football with the Chicago Cardinals, who now play in the Phoenix metro area as the Arizona Cardinals, Heydorn instead attended Yale University’s medical school, graduating in 1959.
Daughter Kathy Winkler of Strawberry said that while her dad was “very proud” of getting an offer to play pro football, he decided he’d have a longer career as a doctor.
After graduating from Yale, he interned at a hospital in Cooperstown, New York, before enlisting in the U.S. Army. During his career, Heydorn was surgery chief at the 5th General Hospital in Stuttgart, Germany; the commanding officer at 44th Surgical and 11th Evacuation military hospitals in South Korea; and a thoracic surgeon at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Denver.
“When he was in Korea, he would often tell us stories about any time the beds were not full, he would take in children or locals from the village and operate on them if they needed hernia repair or a cleft-palate surgery or whatever,” Winkler said. “He would just take care of them.”
Following three years in Colorado, Heydorn in 1975 joined the surgery department at the now-decommissioned Letterman Army Medical Center teaching hospital in the San Francisco Presidio. By 1978 he was department chief and by 1987, he became its commanding officer. Heydorn during his military career received the Legion of Merit and Meritorious Service Medal.
While he worked with W.L. Gore & Associates on incorporating Gore-Tex into stents and valves, he never patented the idea, Winkler said. Will Heydorn said his dad wanted to give back to medicine and to humanity when developing those stents.
“I think it was for the greater good,” he said, which “speaks a lot about him.”
Will said his father was “definitely dad, but was a very busy dad at that.” He was on call for patients and dedicated to professional interests as a thoracic surgeon but able to support his kids’ sporting endeavors, whether it was being a lane judge at a swim meet, driving Will to Tiburon Peninsula Little League practice or assisting the local Scouts BSA troop.
Those were “all the little things that you take for granted as a kid, but you look back in life, and it was really so much,” Will said.
After retiring from the U.S. Army and as a surgeon, Heydorn worked in medial compliance, accreditation and education for various entities, including as a field representative for the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, which accredits and evaluates medical residencies and internships; a clinical professor of surgery at the University of California at San Francisco and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland; and, between 2003 and 2016, as a surveyor of international medical facilities with the nonprofit Joint Commission, visiting more than 40 health-care facilities in 22 countries, including Indonesia, Thailand, Kenya and Saudi Arabia.
Outside of his professional life, Heydorn was a keen tennis player and swimmer at the Tiburon Peninsula Club, with his children noting he swam at the club seven days a week later in life. He was also a member of the Bohemian, Explorers and Commonwealth clubs and wrote “Geronimo: The Rest of the Story,” which documents how the Apache leader converted to Christianity in 1900 and 1901.
In his retirement, he also spent time with his grandchildren, with Winkler noting “he loved being a grandfather,” and enjoyed traveling, visiting India, Dubai, Turkey and Jerusalem as part of a longstanding interest in Biblical history. However, his all-time favorite place to visit was Holland, Michigan, where his alma mater is located.
Will Heydorn said his dad knew he wanted to reside in the Bay Area, adding he loved the views from Tiburon and the people living in town.
“He was so happy and content,” Will Heydorn said. “I mean, what better commute than to go across the Golden Gate Bridge every day to the Presidio and then come back to Tiburon?”
Winkler said her father was a very faithful family man with a strong moral compass who always wanted to bring out the best in others and improve others’ lives.
She said that has trickled down into her own life, noting she and her daughters sometimes find themselves giggling and asking themselves, “Why wouldn’t you aim for or expect to be the best?”
“Obviously, that’s not going to happen all the time, but that’s where the bar should be set,” she said.
Heydorn is survived by his sister, children Barbara Heydorn of Woodside, Kathy Winkler of Strawberry and Will Heydorn of Capistrano Beach, and grandchildren Mattie Winkler, Brigitte Winkler and Ashley Heydorn, as well as several nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his wife and his parents.
A memorial service will be held 2 p.m. Feb. 28 at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Belvedere and livestreamed on its YouTube channel. Donations can be made to Hope College, New Brunswick Theological Seminary, the Yale School of Medicine or the charity of one’s choosing.
Reach Tiburon reporter Francisco Martinez at 415-944-4634.