Dick Mallery, R.I.P.

Dick Mallery, one of the biggest movers and shakers in Arizona, died this week. I was lucky to meet him immediately after I arrived in the state, a baffled and wet behind the ears New Yorker, and he became a mentor of mine. His first words to me: “You’ll do fine here, Francine. Phoenix is a meritocracy and the smart people make it.” That turned out to be true, although it would have been more true had I been a man. (I digress.)

I only found out about Dick’s early life from reading the article about him in the Arizona Republic, a newspaper whose former owner, Eugene Pulliam, gave him his start. Although Dick never mentioned getting his undergrad degree from dePauw, it makes sense since Pulliam also owned the Indiana newspapers at the time.

Dick and I shared a background of both having attended Cornell, where I was an undergrad and he got a Master’s before law school. He was recommended to me as someone to meet when I went West. By the time I met him, he was already a partner in Snell and Wilmer, whose firm he used throughout his life as a platform for a much larger career. To call him a lawyer wouldn’t have done him justice. He was a Renaissance man, a builder, a dealmaker.

We had in common our faith in the future. In the early 80s, he and I both bought early Apple computers so our kids would be computer literate. I remember this as a real deep dive into technology way ahead of most people we knew. We shared many of those moments.

He worked with all the pro-growth Phoenix groups, and introduced me to many of them when I went into the PR business. He caused downtown to come about almost single-handedly and then, as a labor of love, after his first wife Francie died of cancer, he was determined to start a cancer center in Phoenix so that cancer victims did not have to drive all the way to Tucson to get treatment, as Francie did.

And look where we are due to his vision. We have the entire bioscience center downtown and a huge proliferation of bioscience companies, treatments and research facilities. All of them can be traced to Dick Mallery. Actually all of them can be traced back to Dick Mallery’s love for his first wife, Francie. (I know he married again, ironically another woman named Francie, but the first Francie was my friend and thus I can never forget how upset Dick was when she was diagnosed with cancer.)

He drove her back and forth to and from Tucson for her treatments until she passed away and while he was doing that he made a fetish of getting to know oncologists and cancer researchers all over the world. I remember that the man he wanted the most was Jeffrey Trent and today Jeffrey is still in Phoenix, largely due to Dick Mallery’s efforts and his unbelievable fundraising ability. (Thank you, Flinn Foundation).

But that wasn’t the only thing he did. For a while he was on the board of the Hoover institution and he taught me to respect it although it leaned further to the right than I wanted to lean. I took my political lessons largely from Dick, and that helped me grow.

In those days people didn’t automatically tell you how they voted, and I never knew whether he was a Republican or a Democrat. He supported both and he taught me to do the same thing. That turned out to be the best way to live in the Arizona business community.

But the thing that I (and my children) remember best was Dick Mallery’s Christmas party. It was the event of the season for our family.

For many years, Dick and Francie, who had four children, used to have an annual Christmas party. Francie was really good at giving parties. Dick had a large network, and hundreds of people came to the party. I can remember clowns, live animals, puppet shows, and major entertainment for the children on the Mallery’s huge back lawn on East Georgia Street. While the kids were engaged with all the exciting entertainers, the adults were sitting on the Mallery’s back patio making deals or talking to each other. Gary Driggs, who owned Western Savings, was Santa Claus.

I met everyone in Phoenix in the Mallery’s backyard. And they taught me to celebrate Christmas. Because I had a public relations business, there were many times that I could help Dick with his causes. One of them was to limit the height of buildings at 24th Street and Camelback, because he was involved in developing downtown Phoenix.

He got a coalition of neighbors together, including the Arizona Biltmore, they hired our company, and we beat Fife Symington, the developer of the Esplanade. Because of Dick Mallery, the buildings at 24th Street and Camelback are the height-limited versions they are today. And also because of Dick Mallery, Donald Trump withdrew his proposal for a Trump Hotel.

Rest in power, Dick.