Honoring the Life of DR. Patricia Ann Sandoval

HON. RAUL RUIZ

of california

in the house of representatives

Mr. RUIZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Dr. Patricia Ann (Greco) Sandoval of

Indian Wells, California. Born May 6, 1959, at Tachikawa Air Base in Tokyo, Japan, she was a physical therapist, professor, and devoted mother. She passed away on July 4, 2026, after a long battle with breast cancer.

Patricia spent much of her life healing others. It was never just her profession. It was who she was. She cared for people, for animals, and for anything that found its way into her hands needing help.

Her life resisted easy description. The daughter of Italian and Japanese parents, she grew up as a military dependent. From her early teens to her early twenties, she worked as a high fashion model in Japan and across Asia. She learned to weld, taught aerobics, and was a gifted dancer, from rumba and cha-cha to tap and modern, and even belly dancing with a sword on her head. She was also an artist and a singer.

She was smart from the start, finishing in the top ten percent of her

class at Yokota High School in Japan. That is where she met Lt. Col. Alfredo A. Sandoval, who would be her partner for fifty years. She became the number one graduate of her undergraduate physical therapy program at Texas Tech. She went on to earn her Doctorate in Physical Therapy from Boston University as a Distinguished Graduate and taught in its doctoral program for many years.

Patricia was also a respected hospital executive. For ten years, she led physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech, and all allied health programs at Desert Hospital, now Desert Regional Medical Center, and JFK Memorial Hospital. She was greatly admired there. Early in her career, she also bought a building and opened her own physical therapy practice.

Later, she left the workforce to home school her grandchildren, and

• by Alfredo's account, she was a very tough principal.

Her daughters, Rachel, an ER and trauma nurse, Ariana, a teacher, and

Simone, a law school graduate, were at the center of her world, along with her grandchildren, Aki, Vincent, Xavier, and Luca. When Ariana was left paralyzed and in a coma after a devastating car accident, Patricia drew on everything she knew as a physical therapist and everything she was as a mother and devoted herself to Ariana's recovery.

Alfredo remembers her patience, her positive outlook, and her

tenacity. She always looked for solutions that left everyone feeling heard, working toward consensus with a smile and a reassuring word. “She was my vector, my compass,” he says. “She just knew which steps to take.” He adds that it was always a blessing to be with such a nice and beautiful woman, and that everyone noticed.

Patricia was a loving sister to Joe, Julie, Alex, and Angie, children

of Yukie and Joseph K. Greco. What will be missed most is the certainty that when someone she loved needed her, she was there, and somehow, she knew what to do.

I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Dr. Patricia Ann (Greco) Sandoval and extending our deepest condolences to her family, especially her husband Alfredo, her daughters, and her grandchildren.