Dick was born on June 20, 1934 in Hugoton, a small town in the State of Kansas, USA. His father was a successful lawyer and his mother a teacher. Dick and Wanda, his wife, were born during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and combined with the impact of the Great Depression, grew up at a time of great difficulty and uncertainty in the States. He believes that being born in this era instilled in both he and Wanda the values consistent with that era, which include discipline, conservatism, and frugality.
To get a complete picture of how Dick’s upbringing influenced the development of his person, it is pertinent to mention that Kansas was set up by families that emigrated from the American East, largely driven by the desire for religious freedom e.g. Mormons, Quakers etc. Both Dick and Wanda’s grandparents homesteaded in West Kansas, with agriculture as the major economic mainstay (this included ranches, as well as grain farming in wheat and corn). The discipline and grit required to farm and set up house in an arid and rocky region, with sparse development was reflected in the ethos and habits of these settlers and their children.
Dick’s father was a friendly, disciplined, and hardworking man. His own father had died when he was six years old, and through determination and the dint of hard work he put himself through Law school and started practicing law in West Kansas. At the time, West Kansas had one of the largest natural gas reserves in the United States, most if it duly owned by the families that had settled on the land. He would later come to represent landowners against the exploitative tendencies of these Oil majors by assisting them negotiate more equitable royalty terms.
Dick was born, the first of three sons to both his parents (his father had been widowed from an earlier marriage that had produced an earlier son). Dick grew up and attended High School in Hugoton, where he met Wanda. He was an athlete and she, a cheerleader. The two of them would get married in their late teens before he would proceed to the University of Kansas, where he studied Accounting. He and Wanda had both their sons, Cliff and Kirk, in 1952 and 1955 respectively (while he was still in school). He put himself through school and supported his family by working (during summers), accessing student loans and getting some help from his dad. Upon graduating, he would proceed for an MBA at the prestigious Harvard Business School.
When he graduated from Harvard, he was advised to get his CPA, and Arthur Andersen came highly recommended as a good firm to work in while writing his professional exams. He applied and was engaged to work for the firm at its new office in Denver, Colorado. Dick’s entire professional career was spent in Arthur Andersen and he would over time move from the accounting practice into consulting, which provided him with broad and robust exposure within the firm. He also got diverse international exposure, setting up offices in Latin America, Europe, and Africa. His last and longest assignment with Arthur Andersen was in Nigeria (West Africa), where he established an office in 1978. He worked in the Nigerian office until his retirement from the firm, in 1994, at the age of sixty.
Dick came to Nigeria in 1978 to help establish an office for Authur Andersen & Co. (AA) in the capacity of Managing Partner, after similar assignments in Brussels and Buenos Aires. The two current successor firms to AA Nigeria are KPMG Professional Services and Verraki (formerly Accenture), both of which are leading firms in the fields of accounting, tax and related services; as well as management consultancy, respectively. Dick was co-founder of African Capital Alliance, a Private Equity firm focused on investing in sub-Saharan Africa, from where he retired as Chairman in 2018.
During his career at Arthur Andersen, he worked in all areas of the firm’s practice in the US, Latin America, Middle East, Europe, India, as well as Africa. Following his retirement from AA in 1994, Dick remained in Nigeria to consult, invest and to continue his community-oriented activities. He helped establish the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (and was its first Vice Chairman); the Harvard Business School Association of Nigeria (was the Association’s second President); the Lagos Business School (where he was a founding member of the Advisory Board and part of the faculty); and the American Business Council (he was the inaugural Chairman). He was also the Chairman of the Technical Team of the Vision 2010 Committee. In addition to these, was a long-standing Trustee for the Ikoyi Club 1938, Lagos - Nigeria, and an active member of several chambers, association, professional activities and non-profit organisations.
In 2001, he was conferred with the National Honour of Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR); in 2003, with the Zik Prize in Leadership; and in 2007, the Institute of Directors award for the Entrepreneurship. Dick's greatest pride however was with the valuable relationships, he developed in Nigeria. The picture to the side shows Dick with Pascal Dozie (a distinguished banker and business man).
Dick’s legacy from his work and time in Nigeria is quite multifaceted. Many have benefitted from his direct supervision and mentorship and probably one of his greatest accomplishments is the number of Nigerian leaders, across generations, fields and gender, that ascribe their inspiration for good governance and ethical leadership to him. Today, they constitute a significant number of leaders serving, traversing Nigeria’s corporate and public-sector settings.
