This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Sept. 29, 2011 - Dick Berg, whose skills were worthy of an architect but who chose to craft messages that helped to transform major institutions, died Monday at the health center at the Pines at Davidson, a retirement community in North Carolina where he had lived for the past three years.
His wife, Jean Berg, said he suffered a massive stroke on Saturday, Sept. 17, from which he never regained consciousness. He was 78.
Mr. Berg had never fully recovered from a stroke he suffered two and a half years ago but had made remarkable progress.
"Friday afternoon he walked to the front door to greet friends arriving for weekly ice cream," Jean Berg said.
Mr. Berg developed and directed the first public information office for the Smithsonian, helped Lindenwood College become co-educational and changed the way the local United Way spoke to the community.
The United Way
The United Way of Greater St. Louis more than doubled its fundraising campaign during Mr. Berg's 17-year tenure, going from $25 million in 1981 to more than $57 million in 1998. Craig Schnuck, a former United Way volunteer campaign chair, board chair and communications committee chair, gives Mr. Berg a large share of the credit for the success of those 17 campaigns.
"Dick was an excellent communications executive," said Schnuck, former CEO of Schnuck Markets. "He found multiple ways to get the United Way message out that the organization had not used before."
Schnuck cited "two outstanding examples of creative approaches Dick used to expand the reach of the United Way message": United Way's simulcast, a half-hour television program broadcast simultaneously by all local TV stations to kick off the campaign each year; and "United Way Radio Days," a week's bombardment of public service announcements and interviews during the annual campaign.
"Dick was just a wonderful leader at the United Way," said Gary Dollar, United Way's current president and chief executive officer. "He helped us really look at how people viewed us and helped people understand what their giving to United Way means to people in need."
During the 1980s, as computer mainframes gave way to PCs and telephone answering systems displaced message pads, Mr. Berg led the technological charge at United Way.
"He helped me learn how to use word processing," said Shirley Browne, a writer who thought herself retired until she met Mr. Berg. He convinced her to write materials for seven United Way campaigns.
"He provided me with a second career, for which I'm eternally grateful," Browne said. "He was delightful to work for and with. And he was brilliant."
Brilliant enough to help move United Way not only technologically but literally. He designed every inch of the United Way's new office space when the organization moved in 1988.
While leading the local organization's communications efforts, Mr. Berg also taught marketing and communications at United Way of America's National Academy for Voluntarism.
Visualize It
Browne recalled that Mr. Berg's favorite adage was: "If you can visualize it, you can do it."
Blaine Richard Berg, the middle child of Henry Clemenson Berg and Winifred Carr Berg's three sons, was born Dec. 21, 1932, in the old French Hospital in Chinatown in Los Angeles. It was an apropos beginning to a communications career that spanned more than four decades, and took Mr. Berg from the west coast to the east coast and back again and finally to the Midwest.
He graduated from Fresno State University in 1954 with a degree in journalism and worked for the Bakersfield Californian, Fresno Bee and Sacramento Bee. While serving in the Army at Fort Ord in California, he met Jean Stewart; they were married April 7, 1956.
The couple soon moved to the east coast, where Mr. Berg earned a master's degree in communications at Boston University. They returned to California, where their two sons were born. Mr. Berg became public relations director for the Crippled Children's Society of Los Angeles County and then for Occidental College. While at Occidental, he produced an award-winning half-hour television documentary on poet Robinson Jeffers.
The family moved to North Arlington, Va., when Mr. Berg became public relations director for George Washington University and later the Smithsonian Institution. He developed and directed the first public information office for the Smithsonian, the world's largest museum and research complex.
In the late '60s, Mr. Berg was named vice president of public information and finance of what was then Lindenwood College for Women in St. Charles. He helped the all-women's institution in its to admitting male students. While there, he earned his doctorate in administration for higher education at Saint Louis University.
He taught public relations at both George Washington University and at Lindenwood College.
"Dick was so accomplished and had such depth of knowledge," said longtime friend, Carol L. Rogers. "He was such a Renaissance man, but if you met him without knowing his background, he was just the guy next door."
Mr. Berg was said to always be first in line for any charitable event. His civic engagements included serving as president of the St. Louis chapter of the Public Relations Society of America in 1988 and he was elected to PRSA's College of Fellows. He was chair of the University City Arts and Letters Commission and was a member of the National Press Club, the Press Club of Metropolitan St. Louis and the coordinating council for the Presbytery of Giddings Lovejoy of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A.
Mr. Berg's last career stop was the United Way of Greater St. Louis, where he retired as senior vice president of communications in 1998.
The author of this obituary worked with Mr. Berg at the United Way and I succeeded him in the role of senior vp for communications. Dick Berg simply was one of the best in the business. I still find myself doing things "the Dick Berg way."
A Happy Home
The Bergs retired to Cozumel, Mexico, where they had visited many times and where Mr. Berg had indulged his penchant for wind surfing, sailing and snorkeling. Here he would use his architectural skills to design their doctor's home and clinic -- and their retirement home. They called it "Casa Feliz," The Happy House.
"It was a small home, but you could see the (Caribbean) ocean from every room," Jean Berg said proudly.
Mr. Berg's favorite room was his carpentry workshop, where he made, among other things, stained glass windows,
It was work that he began while living in St. Louis. Some of Mr. Berg's stained glass filters the light much like the windows at Samuel United Church of Christ in Clayton. But his signature pieces are two seven-foot high stained glass windows that he spent two years making for a Cancun church sanctuary before moving to Mexico.
The Bergs left Mexico for Charlotte, N.C., in 2007 and moved to Davidson, N.C., a year later. They brought a "Casa Feliz" sign to hang in their new home.
"Dick came with a full package: Jean -- it was always Dick and Jean Berg -- and their children," Rogers said. "The nicest gift I ever received was the gift of their friendship."
Mr. Berg was preceded in death by his parents and two brothers, Henry Berg and William Berg.
In addition to his wife, Jean Stewart Berg, of Davidson, Mr. Berg is survived by their two sons and daughters-in-law, Scott Richard Berg and his wife, Freddi Lipstein, of Washington, D.C., and Gregory Stewart Berg and his wife, Barbara Mozena, of Durham, N.C.
A Celebration of Life service will be at 3 p.m. on Sun., Oct. 9, at Holy Covenant United Church of Christ, 3501 W WT Harris Blvd., Charlotte, N.C.28269.
If desired, in lieu of flowers memorial gifts would be appreciated to Holy Covenant United Church of Christ, P.O. Box 481285, Charlotte, N.C. 28269 or to the Resident Support Fund of The Pines at Davidson, 400 Avinger Lane, Davidson, N.C. 28036.
Gloria Ross is the head of Okara Communications and the storywriter for AfterWords, an obituary-writing and production service.