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Richard H. Owens
1935 - 2016
Richard H. Owens
1935 - 2016
Obituary
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Richard Owens Obituary
Richard Hyatt Noonan Owens of Arcadia, California passed away peacefully at his home on March 23, 2016. He was 80 years old. "Dick" as he was better known was born in Kansas City, Missouri on November 29, 1935 to Gertrude Elizabeth Reinhart and John Vincent Noonan. He was the middle of three children, John Noonan (deceased) and Robert Noonan (deceased). After attending elementary school in Missouri, his family subsequently moved to Atlanta, Georgia where he graduated from Marist College which was a boys military prep school. He attended Emory University in Atlanta where he was active in the Chi Phi fraternity. Dick served in the U.S. Army and was honorably discharged as a First Lieutenant. He was a Tank Platoon Leader at Fort Stewart, Georgia and he also traveled extensively throughout Europe as Captain of the U.S. Army Marksman team.
Dick met his wife of 55 years, Mary Louise Stephenson (deceased) in Atlanta, Georgia and in 1959 they married and moved to California where they had five children, Christopher, Timothy, John, Kathleen (Peter) and Richard. Once settled in California, Dick worked for The Allstate Insurance Company, then Hycon Manufacturing Company/McDonnell Douglas where he managed the team that put the spy camera in the SR-71 Blackbird. At the age of 37 with three children and a fourth on the way, he went back to school. Dick graduated and received both his Bachelors and MBA from the University of Southern California in 1974, all the while maintaining a 4.0 average, being active in the Chi Phi Fraternity and welcoming their fifth child. He then began an illustrious 35 year career in commercial and industrial real estate with Coldwell Banker. He was also very involved with the Chi Phi Fraternity and Alumni at USC. Dick was an active member of the Jonathan Club where he and the family enjoyed many of their events at both the downtown and at the Santa Monica beach facility.
Dick was generous with his time. He was a natural born leader who enjoyed mentoring others and never shied away from the chance to guide, support or encourage someone along the way. He had an unprecedented work ethic and he truly believed managing your time wisely was the key to success. His favorite mantra to share was, "There are 24 hours in a day. How successful you are in life is what you do with that time."
He was active on the board for both Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy and St. Francis High School. In addition to being resourceful, he was well regarded for being an honest and trustworthy businessman. Dick was a voracious reader who loved to engage others in somewhat lengthy conversations, as we all know Dick loved to talk. He loved food, wine, cigars and Fox News. He also enjoyed trips to Mexico, Palm Springs, and going to the Sacramento Dixie Land Jazz Festival.
Dick's favorite day of the year without a doubt was St. Patricks Day. He took the day off every year up until his retirement, donning a Kelly green tie and bringing in Bushmills and pastries to the office along with shamrock stickers to make sure everyone had some green to wear that day. He was then off to celebrate in downtown LA. He truly believed it should be a national holiday. Dick took pride in his Irish heritage thus visiting Ireland in 2010.
Dick was a devout Catholic with an unwavering faith and strong relationship with God. He was a faithful parishioner of Holy Angels Church for over forty years. He always said that it was his faith in God that would get him through the tough times in life, as his wife Mary Lou died only five short months ago. In addition to his children, Dick is survived by his two grandchildren, Petra Victoria (11) and Owen Amos (9) who lovingly called him "GP Dickie".
A funeral service and celebration of life will be held Thursday, March 31, 2016 at 10:00 am at Holy Angels Catholic Church in Arcadia, California.
To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.
Tim Owens
April 7, 2016
My Dad was a great man.
Throughout my life, beginning early in my youth, my Father taught me many great things. On many occasions he would sit me down and tell me things such as:
He taught me the value of time and how important it was to use time wisely.
He taught me about his Faith in God. He told me his Faith in God carried him in his most trying moments.
My Father shared his favorite poem with me ("If" by Rudyard Kipling). He told me the most important thing in life is to be honest.
"Always, always be honest" he would tell me. He would tell me, "your good name is EVERYTHING".
These lessons he would repeat over and over and over throughout my life as a young man and as an adult.
He taught me to treat everyone that I meet equally, fairly, honestly, and treat them how I wanted them to treat me.
My Father taught me the value of hard work, determination, and never giving up.
My Father taught me these lessons via "Leadership by Example." Anything my father told me he always "showed me" by his own example.
My Father taught me the value of an education. When I was 8, with the help of my Mother financially supporting the family, my Father went back to college. My Father would take me to the library and I would sit quietly while my Father studied.
My Father was always kind. My Father always had a smile. As mentioned previously, my Father always impressed upon me how important his Faith and belief in God were. I remember quite distincly, no matter where our Family went on vacation (Las Vegas, Palm Springs, Oregon, etc) my Father would always find a Catholic Church and we would attend...each and every Sunday. I was very impressed by that.
My Father taught me how to tie a tie.
My Father took me to the World Series in 1974 (LA Dodgers vs. Oakland A's).
My Father would hold my head when I was 5 years old and not feeling well.
My Father always tried to make things better.
When I was 18, I had signed up and enlisted in the Marine Corps. When it was the day for me to leave for Marine Corps bootcamp (San Diego), my Father, at 4am, drove me to the military station in downtown Los Angeles and dropped me off. As I opened the door to get out, he said, "Hey." I looked back to my Father, and with tears in his eyes, my Father said, "I love you" and he kissed me on my cheek.
My Father was the most giving, and the most loving man I ever met.
From a very early age, my Father was my hero. Some young boys choose Batman as their hero. Some choose Superman. Some want to be astronauts when they grow up.
All I ever wanted when I grew up, was to be just like my Father (these thoughts started around the age of 6)
My Father was a great man....and I miss him every day....more than words can say.
(written by his second son - Timothy).
Scott Benton
March 31, 2016
An Open Letter to the Family of Dick Owens:
I'm writing because I recently heard about the passing of Dick Owens who I feel fortunate enough to have known as an important key mentor and advisor while I was attending the University of Southern California, and myself a member of the Chi Phi Fraternity, an organization Dick cared about immeasurablyas I'm sure you probably well know.
For me, I always regarded him as an ongoing wellspring of positive, unwavering influence for our fraternal family, as well as a skilled voice of fairness and levity for any one of us to consult at a moment's notice. He was someone who continuously pushed our group far beyond our own perceived boundaries into reaching the highest possible standards he saw in each Chi Phi every time he walked through the door of the house during my undergraduate years in the late 1980s, and throughout my post-graduate work in the early 1990s.
But more recently I've since learned from other Chi Phis who themselves have reflected on Dick's passing, and who expressed their own indelible connection and valued memories they had with him going back to the early 1970s, that he had been involved in Chi Phi for a much, much longer timeframe than just during the few short years when I knew him.
They unquestionably remember Dick as an absolute paragon for what our fraternity stands for, and who throughout his life reflected the discipline and rigorous decorum we strove to emulate, lessons so many of us were able to take past the graduation platform into the byways for the lives and careers we pursued on the other side of USC. He was a trusted alumnus who was with us at the house in person during our struggles, and who celebrated our many achievements and victories by always campaigning for Chi Phi to create its best possible self whatever our numbers and strengths happened to be. And whether we were up one year or down the next, he remained a steady rock leading us to fight on in the face of challenges we were up against, and he never once left our side.
He was able to give us a vision for ourselves we didn't always know we had. He made us see what otherwise we might have potentially missed. If for some misguided moment we found ourselves staring down at the ground, he would appear to us pointing up at the stars. The outpouring and overabundance of his confidence filled us our with our own sense of immutability, and his spirit was carried time and time again, one generation after the next of USC Chi Phis, straight back out that same door of the house, and into the full open world for all the many brothers he had taken under the wing of his mentorship. He gave us guidance, he gave us purpose, and most importantly he gave a homethe kind that couldn't ever possibly be built out of concrete or support beams and drywall.
It was through his imperishable dedication and love towards everyone under the roof of Chi Phi that Dick painstakingly one-by-one drew out our best qualities, and directed our minds towards a life of achievement and deliberate accomplishment. For an undergrad like me without much reference for what fraternity remotely meant at the time when I joined Chi Phi, Dick always did his best as an advisor to exemplify the true potential behind the idea that Chi Phi wasn't just something you did when you were young and in college. It wasn't a forgettable waypoint or distant outpost to visit one day that carelessly had been circled on a dusty, crumbling gas station roadmap. It wasn't a box to conveniently check off on a long list of destinations and then move on to the next adventure.
To him, fraternity meant for a lifetime.
He taught us it meant for a lifetime of dedication by showing up over and over again. It meant for a lifetime of continuous and focussed application of an indomitable spirit somehow inside us with total involvement in whatever we strove for. And whether we knew it or not at the time, it meant for a lifetime of connection to the brothers we met along the way who influenced us to become our best. To never quit. To strive impossibly. To celebrate where we had come from, who we were becoming in the process of going through Chi Phi, and where we were were destined to end up. Fraternity crossed so many lines and barriers through the vast underbrush of ideals, beliefs, and experience, and Dick brought so much of that out of us to see firsthand through his work in the fraternity.
For many Chi Phis, wherever the road finally did take us, and in all the varied directions we decided to traverse, Dick was always there guiding us along the way and pointing up to the stars.
To us he is honored and will remain a powerful light for everyone lucky enough to have known him.
And he will be tremendously missed.
Semper Chi Phi,
Scott Benton
Jonathan Whitaker
March 31, 2016
Dick was generous and gracious with his time to mentor many members of the Chi Phi fraternity at USC. He provided an excellent example for all of us young men to aspire to - a happy home and family life, a strong spiritual foundation, a successful career, and a dedication to improve the lives of others. Thank you Dick, and Rest in Peace.
March 31, 2016
Dick was an honorable and unselfish man, and it was a privilege for me to count him as a friend. May he rest in God's peace and comfort.
Gary Ashcraft
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March 30, 2016
So glad to have been a colleague of Dick's at CB for so many years...and a guy to have 'a pop' with after work 'while the traffic was thinning out'! He always had a smile on his face, was an asset to the office, and played the industrial real estate game fairly and squarely. Clients and other salesmen, in and out of CB, enjoyed being in 'a deal' with him, as he was honorable and always did his part.
Bill Payne
Jayne Tinney
March 30, 2016
My sympathy, thoughts and prayers are with Kathy and her siblings. May your dad rest in peace.
Dennis McGaughey
March 30, 2016
He was truly a great friend from the time I first met him in the early seventies at the USC Chi Phi House - I took him as my guest many times to The California Club for my free birthday dinner because it was too long a drive for Anita after we moved from Toluca Lake by Universal Studios to Laguna Beach in 1994.
Dennis McGaughey (Santa Maria, CA)
Greg Sarandi
March 28, 2016
It was indeed an honor to know this man. As stated before, Dick was always the coolest guy in the room. To say he will be missed is a colossal understatement. We have truly lost a giant! So, as some have already said and many more will undoubtedly say, EFFE Dick!
Greg Sarandi
March 28, 2016
Just a great man. In our world, he was always the coolest guy in the room. Saying he will be missed is a colossal understatement. It was an honor to know and work with Dick Owens. As many others have or will say, EFFE Brother Owens!
Scott Benton
March 28, 2016
A great man with a big heart, and always remembered for the immeasurable care and dedication he took towards all the many generations of us at USC lucky enough to call him a brother.
Michael Coates
March 25, 2016
One of the most giving, loving, generous and true "man among men" I have ever known. His tutelage and friendship I will forever cherish, and his dedication to the Brothers of Chi Phi will live on for eternity. Dick, I know you are now watching from above my brother. EFFE! Your bro, Michael Coates
Said Jabbari
March 25, 2016
In loving memory of a wonderful person. We will love you and miss you always. Eternally Fraternally, Fraternally Eternally. Said (Djabs) Jabbari
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