Industrial Distribution

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A sad goodbye to Richard "Dick" Daniels
June 16, 2008

Richard W. "Dick" Daniels, the sharp-dressed, sharp-witted sales and marketing expert who sold advertising space in INDUSTRIAL DISTRIBUTION magazine for nearly 40 years, died early Saturday morning after a short bout with cancer.

Dick, or Richard, as he wanted to be known in his later years, died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 86 at his home in Glenview, Ill. He was diagnosed with lung cancer less than two weeks ago.

Richard was my friend for more than 20 years. He loved selling space and sold advertising for ID under several different owners. In fact, Richard was with ID until he was 77. Upon leaving the advertising industry, he took on several new challenges, most of them involving travel. In our last conversation Thursday, Richard and I reminisced about his “old days of publishing” and how much he enjoyed meeting with clients and developing marketing plans.

“I was not just a salesman,” he said with pride. “I was a marketing expert.”

He knew he only had a few weeks to live and he died with dignity and class, something he exhibited to everyone who had known him over the years.

“Jack, I have absolutely no regrets,” he told me. “I did things people only dream about.”

And boy did he ever. After graduating from Deerfield Academy, he entered the U.S. military service during World War II, and at the age of 19 became a pilot “flying over the hump” bringing needed supplies to his armed service colleagues. He flew many missions and after his discharge he attended and graduated from the University of Michigan. Richard started selling cutting tools in Greenfield, Mass., and years later joined the staff of INDUSTRIAL DISTRIBUTION.

His sales numbers were legendary. He was one of the best salespeople in the business and he thrived on beating the competition.

Richard and I went on sales calls together and I watched and learned about selling and the industrial distribution business. He was always nattily dressed, wearing an expensive tie and looking as if he had stepped off a page from GQ magazine. Of course, he was in sales for the money, but he was anxious to help a manufacturer achieve his overall marketing strategy or felt he wasn’t doing his job.

In the 1990s, Richard was admitted to a hospital for surgery and was placed in intensive care. The publisher at the time and I were worried about closing an issue and were discussing who would be making calls to Richard’s clients. My phone rang and it was Richard on the other end of the line.

“I got another page in, so you’ll have to redo the layout,” he said. He went over a list of accounts with me from his bed in the intensive care unit but he said he had to get off the phone fast because his IV had to be changed. That was Richard.

I was with Richard in Chicago when his wife, Betty, died in the early 1990s. It was a tough time for him. They never had children and Richard’s life became selling and INDUSTRIAL DISTRIBUTION. Over the years, the ID staff became his adopted family. Rusty, Craig, Patty, Jim, Chris, Diane, Jennifer, Victoria, Alice and Alison were more than colleagues to Richard. Much more. He stayed at the home of former publisher Rusty Piersons during the holiday season; Chris Dewey, a former ID rep in Chicago, was a constant visitor to Richard during his illness.

Richard came to my daughter’s wedding and my wife and I vacationed with him. He was our friend.

In his later years, Richard became an avid traveler. He went on a round–the- world trip, visiting places many people could only imagine seeing. Later trips took him to Russia, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Mexico and China. During another trip he went to Tahiti where he got his first tattoo. Last year, he was planning a second round-the-world trip.

He went to aerobic classes daily and took up kick boxing at the age of 80. I told him to try golf and he said he would when he got older since it was an “old folks game.” He rode on the back of motorcycles, bought a new bicycle, attended classes in options trading and did well in the stock market. Still he wasn’t satisfied.

He redid his resume at 82 and applied for a few jobs but was disappointed when he was turned down.

“I guess they don’t know the value of experience,” he said.

Richard donated so much money to a hospital in Chicago that they called to tell him he could have an endowment in his name. At first he said no, but then rethought his decision.

“You know what I’d like,” he said to the hospital representative. “I’d like a men’s bathroom named after me.”

So with much publicity, a plaque memorializing Richard was placed outside the corporate men’s room. Several newspapers wrote about the unusual gift.

That’s typical of Richard “Dick” Daniels.

He had business cards printed that certainly weren’t traditional. The card showed a beautiful beach scene and at the top it read, “Richard Daniels, chairman emeritus. Life is Good.”

With Richard life was always good, but it won’t be as good for those of us left behind as we mourn the loss of a dear friend.

Posted by Jack Keough on June 16, 2008 | Comments (0)