Arthur Dean "Dean" Swift

Other Events and Attributes:

• Name: Dean Swift
• _FGLINK: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/178373043
• _FGRAVE: 178373043

Notes:

Died:
Arthur Dean Swift was born in Chicago in 1918 to Harold Arthur Swift and Ethel Vada Rogers. He was their only child. His father died early in 1925, when Dean was only 6 years old. His mother continue to raise him by herself.
Dean married Mary Louise Hardy on 3 Mar 1941 in Cook County, IL. They had two sons and a daughter. Dean died in 2000 and Mary Lou never remarried. She died in 2007.


Obituary/bio:
A. Dean Swift, 81, Sears Ceo In '70s
September 01, 2000|By James Janega, Tribune Staff Writer.
A. Dean Swift, 81, president of Sears, Roebuck & Co. through the recessions and inflation of the 1970s, died Monday, Aug. 28, in Evanston Hospital after suffering a stroke over the weekend.
He was the 11th president of the 114-year-old company, elected to the position in 1972 at perhaps the height of Sears' national influence, and he held the post until the beginning of the massive company upheaval of the 1980s.
The size of Sears, Roebuck in 1972 is hard to imagine. As the Sears Tower ascended above Chicago's Loop, Sears accounted for 1 percent of the United States' gross national product. Two out of three people had shopped at Sears within any three-month period, and half the adults in America held a Sears charge card.
But then came oil embargoes, inflation, growing unemployment and a recession. By the end of the 1970s, Sears, like most every other retail outlet in the United States, was struggling to regain its former footing.
Mr. Swift, who retired in 1980, was popular among Sears workers throughout his tenure.
He headed an effort to bring diversity to Sears' workforce and among its suppliers and was widely regarded as an employee-oriented humanitarian.
"If you could pick a father, it was said of Swift, it would be Dean," wrote author Donald Katz in his 1987 book "The Big Store."
A man with an energetic, folksy manner, Mr. Swift started his career at Sears as a salesman and served in almost every other capacity after that. Other executives said he was the kind of manager who took off his sport coat during meetings and gave impromptu speeches remembered for decades.
"He excelled at that," said Ernest Arms, a friend of Mr. Swift's and a longtime spokesman for Sears. "It was his nature, the kind of guy he was."
Mr. Swift grew up in Evanston and graduated in 1940 from the University of Illinois with a political science degree. He went to work as a salesman in the Highland Park Sears store the same year. During World War II, he was a field artillery officer in Europe, winning two Bronze Stars.
He became the Highland Park store's division manager when he returned. Until 1964, he held managerial positions in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Kentucky, then was named general manager of stores in Indianapolis, and later Detroit.
He became vice president of Sears' 13-state southern territory in 1969, serving also on the boards of Allstate Insurance, Homart Development and Sears Roebuck Acceptance Corp. He began his term as Sears president in 1973.
Donald Deutsch, a former Sears vice president, said Mr. Swift also served on dozens of boards, ranging from Commonwealth Edison and the Chicago Board of Trade to the National Urban League, Crusade of Mercy and the Metropolitan Housing and Planning Council. Most of his affiliations involved people-oriented organizations, and Mr. Swift clearly got a lot of enjoyment from them, Deutsch said.
"You could just tell. It was a part of him; he had a great gift for talking to people," said Deutsch. "It was just a part of his makeup and soul."
And it played a big part in why Mr. Swift, minutes after his retirement from Sears, marched across the Loop and volunteered with the Executive Service Corps, said Dennis Zavac, president of the group in which former executives of major companies do volunteer consulting with nonprofit groups.
In 12 years as chairman of the board at Executive Service Corps, Mr. Swift increased its annual budget from $160,000 to $1.1 million and increased the number of corporate supporters tenfold, Zavac said. He accomplished it largely by persuading chief executive officers to come over for a ham sandwich, cole slaw and a slide presentation, Zavac said.
"There was no one in town he wouldn't call, and he delivered," Zavac said. "He was a quiet man, but he threw himself into what he believed in."
Mr. Swift was still chairman of the Executive Service Corps' executive committee when he died.
He is survived by his wife, Mary Lou; two sons, Dean W. and Dr. Dan; a daughter, Sara Snyder; and eight grandchildren.
Services will be held at 11 a.m. Friday in the First Presbyterian Church of Lake Forest, 700 N. Sheridan Rd., Lake Forest.

Arthur married Mary Louise "Mary Lou" Hardy on 3 Mar 1941 in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Mary (daughter of Clarion DeWitt Hardy and Mary Elizabeth "Mamie" Saul) was born on 18 Oct 1918 in Evaston, Cook County, Illinois, United States; died on 15 Feb 2007 in Sarasota, Sarasota County, Florida, United States; was buried on 31 Mar 2007 in First Presbyterian Church Memorial Garden, Lake Forest, Lake County, Illinois, United States. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Snyder. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]