Bruce Brotzman, 73, partner in payroll firm and runner

Jogging and running races did more than ease daily stresses for Bruce C. Brotzman.

"It saved his life," his son, Michael, said.

Mr. Brotzman had started running recreationally in the 1970s, but after a business trip to Dallas in 1993, his son said, "he began experiencing shortness of breath."

Tests revealed that "the heart muscle had been attacked by a virus."

But because years of running had given him "cardiac capability to spare," his son said, "he would continue to run nightly," just not as far nor as fast as before, until recently reducing his exercise to walking.

Mr. Brotzman, 73, of Haddonfield, a partner in PayAll Solutions, a payroll-processing firm in Sewell, died Saturday, March 28, of heart failure at Temple University Hospital.

Before the virus attack in 1993, his son said, Mr. Brotzman usually ran "two to three miles a day most days," topped off by a Sunday morning run of 10 miles or more.

"He never did a marathon," his son said. While training for two, "both times he injured himself."

But most years before 1993, "his big runs every year were the Broad Street Run," a 10-miler, and the former half-marathon known as the Philadelphia Distance Run.

"He got me into running in 1988," Michael Brotzman said, "and we ran 5Ks and five-mile races together" until the heart problem made him cut back.

Mr. Brotzman's other enthusiasm was scouting.

Since 1994, he had been an assistant scoutmaster for Boy Scout Troop 65 in Haddonfield.

Mark Reifsnyder, another Troop 65 assistant scoutmaster, said he first met Mr. Brotzman when they were helping run the troop's annual summer camp in North Jersey.

Mr. Brotzman was chairman of the troop's advancement committee, overseeing the progress of the young men through their merit badge ranks.

"A great guy," Reifsnyder said. "He would always find time to help them when they needed it and would go to bat for them."

Born in Collingswood, Mr. Brotzman graduated from the Peddie School in Hightstown, N.J., in 1960 and earned a bachelor's degree in government studies at Cornell University in 1964 and a master's degree in economics at Temple University in 1968.

While beginning a career as a computer systems designer, Mr. Brotzman took night classes to graduate from Temple's School of Law in 1975.

In the early 1970s, Mr. Brotzman was a designer for the former Scott Paper Co., at its offices near Philadelphia International Airport.

Until the late 1980s, his son said, he was a project manager for computer mainframes at Colonial Penn Life Insurance Co. in Center City.

Mr. Brotzman worked for AIG Life Insurance Co. in Wilmington until 1992, when he joined Condata, the predecessor of PayAll Solutions.

As a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Haddonfield since 1994, he served one term as a deacon and one term as a trustee.

Mr. Brotzman had been a member since 2003 of the West Jersey Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society in Palmyra.

Besides his son, he is survived by his wife, Helen, and two brothers.

A visitation is to take place after a 7 p.m. memorial service Monday, April 6, at Kain-Murphy Funeral Services, 15 West End Ave., Haddonfield.

Donations may be sent to www.haddonfieldumc.com/boy-scouts-troop-65.

Condolences may be offered to the family at http://kainmurphy.com.