Richard “Dick” DeVos ’54, #892

Normally, alumni profiles are the result of personal interviews with the featured brother. On this occasion, with Dick four hours away from Dayton, and as an accommodation to the editor, an exception was made and Dick kindly agreed to submit “his story”, in his own
words.

  The Early Years

My family moved in about 1925 from Chicago to Los Angeles so my Dad could take an opportunity with Price Waterhouse and start his lifelong career with them. We lived in West L.A., where I was born in 1932, until 1940 when we moved to the Pasadena area. My brother, who was five years older, and I lived the life of the beach boys each summer in the La Jolla area. The ocean was a big favorite. I can remember clearly the Sunday morning of December 7, 1941 when we sat around the kitchen table and listened to the news reporting direct from Pearl Harbor of the Japanese attack.

California was quickly put on alert and air raid practice, spotting aircraft and blackouts became regular events. Also the ever-present earthquakes were lived with. Our Japanese/American Gardner and family came to say “goodbye” as they were to be taken to detention camps in the Mohave Desert. That made little sense to a ten-year-old boy. My Dad, who had been a Marine in WW1, was lent to the Navy to do special work in Asia, mostly China, doing analysis on the economic stability of that area to determine how long they could hold off the Japanese. When he returned in 1944 we moved to Washington D.C. My brother stayed in California to finish high school and then entered the AF where he was a belly gunner on a B29. Planes from his squadron eventually dropped the A-bombs.

Washington was quite a change. We lived in the Statler Hotel for six months until my family could find a house to buy. The city schools were segregated so we only competed in sports with the Blacks at the Boy’s Club. Because of the moving I went to three different schools from ninth through twelfth grades. At Wilson High I played football, basketball and baseball. In twelfth grade I had to transfer to the major rival, Western High, which meant playing against many old teammates including my future “best man”. Quite a few friends, as well as fraternity brothers from Wilson, went on to OWU as I later found out. The beauty of the D.C. area and the excitement generated by the constant government activity made it truly unique. At that time I was attending a youth Sunday school at American Univ. The teacher was a great Christian who was able to keep 30-40 guys under control for an hour each week. I absorbed a lot and had great respect for Dr. Griffith. He talked to me about college, suggesting I look at Oberlin, and since neither parent had gone to one I was not sure. I actually tried to enlist at seventeen in the Marines but my Dad wouldn’t sign the papers. “One living ex-Marine in a family was all that was allowed,” he said. With Korea going full blast he probably saved my life. Anyway we loaded up one weekend and drove to Ohio to look.

Off To College

Oberlin was not it! We drove on to look at Denison, which looked very Eastern and appealing. I filled out an application there and we drove on to OWU. We arrived at Dr. Jim Bridges’ office at noon and he sent me to the Beta house with a student for lunch. My host was Dan Ransom ’51. The first guys I saw on entering the dining room were Grover Cooper ’52 (later my big brother) and Baker Smith ’53, both who I had known at Wilson. Also, there were Bob Wooley and Skip Cheseldine both ’51 and Dan Ventres ’52. It was easy to feel at home. At lunch they asked if I was coming to OWU. I decided that the answer should be “yes”. They said they would like me to become a pledge and they would get me a room for the next year. All looked right. So, with a pledge pin in my pocket I met back with my parents. I told them I was done looking and we could go back to Washington. I laugh when I think about that day. It was so simple. My four kids required a great deal more effort.

 OWU Highlights

Coming on campus in the fall was like starting a new life. I had decided to play freshman football, basketball and Varsity tennis. It didn’t occur to me that being a Chemistry major was not a great fit for those plans. Several weeks with Dr. Manual helped sort that out. It wasn’t high school! The next year I decided to major in Business and take my hard fought “C” on as my science credit. Also many of us were committed to the AFROTC program to keep the draft board away and bad grades would not help. The return as a pledge to the Beta house was the right decision. I was put up at Eckelberry’s along with Bob Corey and Dee Simpson, fellow pledges. Believe it or not we had a recent girl graduate living in the room between us. We shared the bathroom and passings in the hall in different shades of dress. A step along the way to adulthood! Our pledge class of twenty-four was a compatible group who suffered the events of pledge training well. I think Hank Anderson ’53 was our trainer. Twenty were initiated by June ’51. Only two from that bunch have passed on to Wooglin—Pete Kaufmann and George Kocher. How many remember the “bench clearing brawl” after pledge week when some of the brothers fought the Sig Eps for the back room at the Jug? Some spent the night as guests of the City. I remember thinking there were some interesting times ahead. With pledge training, housecleaning duties, sports, studying, school classes and an occasional date survival was the trick. As initiation approached we made our pledge trip. Mine with Bob Pickering was to U of Michigan.

Great experience and a cool nighttime hitch hike. Who remembers the “white light” session with Norm Slenker ’51 as the “griller”? I do! Hell week was just that. Back on football … freshman football was mostly “killing us” time. We provided scout team scrimmages for the varsity. I remember lining up against Don Wedge, Al, Bill and Tom Long all ’51 and trying to survive. Tom Goodrich, Jim Compton, Jim Meredith, Morg Shrader and I from the pledge class all participated. As for basketball Paul Kisseberth and I had the pleasure of playing for Bob Strimer. A great guy! Beating him at hand ball was the toughest thing.

Other things I remember:

1. The gracious Mama Linn.
2. Great singing under great song leaders. Paul Koch, Clint Miller and Eddie Stahl
3. Reany’s quarry. Many a life long relationship was developed there.
4. Bob Cotner wiring the fire escape electrically so the guys on the third floor that relieved themselves and rained on his window got a real shocker!
5. Hank Baldwin, House Manager deluxe, tripping on the stairs and tumbling out the front door during “hell week”.
6. Nelson and the kitchen crew. You wouldn’t want to know what happened from time to time with your dinner.
7. Bill Beetham’s ’51 pet hawk that lived in the basement of the house. the Chi Phis in winter ’53, I think, that brought assistance from Delaware’s finest as well as other fraternity participants.

9. Our great Intramural football championships in ’53 with QB Bill Metzel ’53 and again in ’54 against the SAE’s. We were good!!
10.Trips to Florida for Spring Vacation ’53. Pete Kaufman backed over his golf clubs in his rush to stock up the rental house with beer.
11.Bob Corey and I started bar tending at the Elks in our freshman year and ended up by the time we were seniors at the Surrey.
12.Other D.C. Theta Betas:

Dick Eitzel, Larry Linderer, Milt Irvin, Sam Pardoe, Dan Rich and Tom Turco. I had my first date in Florida with Nita Heyman DG at midnight, after she and her friends came in from an earlier party. We were engaged by late fall and married in June 1954. Campus looked like the AF Academy twice a week with marching and saluting. I had the surprise appointment, at least to me, of being named Cadet Commander of the AFROTC my senior year. Summer camp was at Keesler AFB in Miss. for many of us. In July it was 95 in heat and humidity plus 10 more in the formations on the flight line. July 4 weekend was in New Orleans. A fun place for college men. Graduation suddenly appeared and many marriages in June (ours on the 16th ), July and the balance of 1954. Most had their orders within weeks and Korea was almost over. How was that for good news?

The real world started for Nita and me on Sept. 1 at Sampson AFB NY. I had my flight school assignment in Class 56A reporting to Bartow AFB in Florida. We were to get a final flight physical in NY but it turned out they had such a backlog that they were washing out anyone they could. It was determined that I was too tall. I went on casual status and played BB for the base team until January when it was off to special intelligence training (oxymoron?) for six months in Wichita Falls, TX. We got our orders to SAC with the 68th Bomb Wing in Lake Charles, LA. The Wing was a B-47 combat ready Atomic Weapon carrying group whose targets were in Russia. I prepared target info and trained the radar operators on what the displays would look like so they could rain down on them if ever necessary. Only during the Suez crisis did it seem possible when we deployed to forward bases all over the world. It was tense. Later in 1956 we lived through hurricane Audrey that passed directly over our neighborhood and peeled the shingles. The true highlight of our stay was the birth of Rick at a cost of $9.53 the night I was the Base Officer of the Day. Staying in the AF passed by my mind but on August 31,1957 we were out on our way West.

The Real World

Landing in Phoenix to look for a lifetime job was our goal. There were few jobs in 1957 there so with my brother’s help I got some interviews in Los Angeles. The first was with IBM selling typewriters. It was hard to imagine becoming CEO that way. I happened to see Alcoa’s office while driving down Wilshire Blvd. and I used a chit I had from a friend and walked in and got an interview, and a week later a job. A 35-year career in Sales and Marketing positions followed with multiple opportunities. A strange happening in the process was that the LA office was directly next door to Good Samaritan Hospital where I was born 25 years earlier. We moved five

times in the next thirteen years to various US locations. Two children were born in one California stop and one in Seattle to round out the family. By the time we reached Dayton in 1968 I was a Branch Sales Manager (the best sales jobs in the company) but that changed in 1971 when I was sent to The Alcoa Forging Division in Cleveland with three others and told to develop a new strategy to save a sinking ship that didn’t know how to make money. If not, Alcoa would begin to close it down. Within six months we revised the concept of pricing the product and selling it in a profitable method while maintaining our customer base. It worked. Since then Alcoa has adopted this model and reorganized nearly every division in the company along the same lines. I consider myself lucky that I didn’t have to spend any job time in the home office.

Retirement and “The Good Life”

We settled in Bay Village on Lake Erie and have enjoyed our lives here. We are a skiing family who has spent time in Utah and Colorado with our children and friends over the last twenty years. Our children all graduated from Bay Village High School and attended various universities for degrees. We now have 10 grandchildren and enjoy our retirement in the Cleveland area. I was active with Theta House Company during the nineties as well as on the OWU Alumni Board. Our many OWU friends and Beta Brothers remain close in our hearts. Our 50th reunion last May was terrific. We hope there will be many more.

From the Brotherhood….. A Well Deserved Salute

Dick DeVos always was and always will be a devoted Beta. He gave much of his personal time serving during his undergraduate years in various offices of Theta Chapter, and for many years as a member of the House Corporation Board including several years as its President. He has maintained close contact with his many brothers, and has on many occasions been an instigator in arranging gatherings with the many brothers who remain close to Dick and Nita to this day. It is with our great pride that Dick was featured this month as the Alumni Profile. He deserves our thanks for his service and our affection for his steadfast friendship to all of us. From all his many Beta brothers who cherish their relationship with Dick, we all say, with a rousing cheer, “here’s to Dick, and thank God you’re a Beta”.