One of my favorite friends and greatest mentors in my lifetime, was Richard S. Stevens.
In association with the Stevens family, I am in the process of organizing a timeline of Dick's life from his birth through to becoming a literal King of Hospitality & Leisure, at RichardSStevens.Com
I have been a very fortunate recipient of having multiple amazing impactful mentors throughout my life, some long running and others more short lived, but important to me.
One of the early ones who I first met and became great friends with while still in high school was known as Richard S. Stevens, known famously in hospitality and leisure business circles as Dick Stevens. He has been gone for almost 13 years. He would have turned 93 today.
Dick dealt mostly in being the head of conglomerates with multiple subsidiaries that owned/managed hotels such as The Disneyland Hotel, resorts and mixed with condo developments such as Marina City Club in Marina Del Rey California, The Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach, The Jockey Club in Miami and Fisher Island in Miami (the most expensive zip code in the United States).
Most of what he did was attached to world class marinas, and so it really made sense when he founded BellPort Group, a marina acquisitions & management to acquire thousands and thousands of boat slips and the related resorts and shore based real estate connected to those marinas in harbors around the world.
Perhaps his favorite idea which he loved to talk about before during after it happened, was his orchestrating the acquisition of The Queen Mary and The Spruce Goose in a separate deal, so he could put them together as a major Southern California tourist attraction. The Spruce Goose what put underneath the largest geodesic dome in the world.
Dick was definitely my most important mentor in terms of business deal-making. He has had even more of an impact on me later in life that I ever could have imagined. I often find myself focusing to channel my inner Dick Stevens and often ask myself, "What would Dick do in this situation?"
The best part of being friends with Dick, was that he knew how to enjoy life and instilled in me the idea of not chasing deals for money, but think big about deals doing things that one loves to do, as if one already had all the money in the world. He knew things worked out better that way.
The time between the summer of 1982 through the summer Olympics in 1984 were great years to be friends with the Stevens family. Dick was named to be the Commissioner for the Modern Pentathlon for the 1984 Olympics, which took place in Los Angeles. I happened to be next door neighbors with Peter Ueberroth & his family beginning in June 1982, the day it was publicly announced that he was the President of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee.
I ended up booking musical acts to perform for corporate/social events that led up to the Olympics, for the both the Stevens' and the Ueberroth family, in addition to driving around a lot of corporate sponsors and diplomats passing through LA during the organizing process, some of whom I am still in contact with to this day.
Being around Dick Stevens was an exercise in thinking big on a multi-dimensional level, always with several projects running simultaneously, in different stages. With everything Dick had going, he still made time to have fun every day, have lots of dinners and parties with family and old & new friends.
Thank you Dick!