Last night, the Association of Washington Business (AWB) presented Richard J. Spady and his family with the Bruce Briggs Award for Community Service at its annual spring meeting in Spokane. The Briggs Award honors one business person or family each year for exceptional commitment to their community.
Since 1954, Dick's Drive-In restaurants have been an icon in Seattle. Dick Spady is the patriarch of the family. He is a smart business man and just a good human being. His philosophy and tradition is embedded in the business, its people and his family.
Dick prepared four simply business philosophical points which describe his success.
- The first responsibility is to the business itself. Business is all about filling human needs. If one can find a human need--any need--and fill it, one can have a business be it big or small. That business must thrive--its income must be greater than its expenses. In other words, it must make a profit.
- A successful business must treat its employees and suppliers fairly. At Dick's people working there start at $9.25 per hour and normally go to $9.75 after 90 days. Employees working at least 24 hours a week receive full medical coverage and are eligible for $15,000 college scholarships after six months.
- A business is responsible to its immediate community to help in whatever way it can. Dick's generosity is well documented in Seattle especially centered around young people. Whenever, there is a disaster, Dick's kicks in. It also encourages its customers through its "Change for Charity."
- Finally, Dick Spady believes business owners should help build a sustainable community. Helping churches, educational institutions and business owners and people connect to build a better society.
Dick Spady is an example of what makes our country and its free-market system the envy of the world. He represents the values Bruce Briggs brought to the Olympia area as a kind, generous and prosperous nursery owner.
As you look around Olympia, you see thousands of flowering shrubs which the Briggs family nurtured from clippings in their nursery. Bruce was like my grandfather who raised Colorado blue spruce seedlings and sold them around Butte and today when our family goes back to Montana, we see those majestic old growth spruce in yards, parks and along golf courses. They are a legacy in their own right.
People like Bruce Briggs, Dick Spady and my grandfather create a legacy and that legacy is what gives Americans hope for the future. It is based on the ability to create a product or service people need, sell it for a profit, and return those profits to growing the business, its people and our communities.
Congratulations, Dick and the Spady Family.
Don C. Brunell, President (DonB@awb.org)
