Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Richard Howe PHILIPS
Seattle Times, The (WA) - Wednesday, August 18, 1999
Deceased Name: RICHARD HOWE PHILIPS, FOUNDER OF PACIFIC MARITIME MAGAZINE
Richard Howe Philips turned his Pacific Maritime Magazine into one of the most widely circulated of such trade publications on the West Coast.
He tied its success - and 9,000-plus circulation - to the rise of the Pacific Rim shipping trade. Just as he attributed the success of his Pacific Fisheries Review to the strength of the North Pacific commercial crab and salmon fishery.
"But you know, he never took us fishing," said his son Peter Philips of Seattle. "His passion was writing about salmon as a biological and commercial product. He was not particularly passionate about eating it."
Mr. Philips died Sunday (Aug. 15) of pancreatic cancer. He was 64.
The Seattle native, who graduated from Garfield High School, earned a bachelor's degree in English at the University of Washington in 1956. He worked part-time as a news assistant at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
While in the Army in Paris, he met his future wife, a native of the southwest coast of France.
After serving in the Army, he brought his bride back to Seattle. He had become a Francophile, returning each summer to his wife's family's seaside town, Saint Jean-de-Luz.
While working in the early 1960s as a Boeing technical writer, he freelanced a story on tuna fishing in Saint Jean-de-Luz for Pacific Fisherman magazine. In 1962 he became the magazine's West Coast editor. He held the same post at National Fisherman magazine after it bought Pacific Fisherman.
An authority on Pacific salmon fishery and aquaculture, he was invited to help Scandinavian countries develop commercial salmon farming. He also created the "Pacific Packers' Report," an annual publication of National Fisherman.
In 1974 he went out on his own to become editor of the monthly Fishermen's News. Under the magazine's aegis he published the annual Pacific Fisheries Review. In 1983 he founded the monthly Pacific Maritime Magazine.
"There was at the time no publication aimed at the operation sector of the maritime-transportation industry," said his son, who became Pacific Maritime Magazine publisher when his father retired last year.
"By the early 1980s, West Coast trans-Pacific cargo volumes exceeded trans-Atlantic volumes. My father saw there was no publication aimed at people who moved those goods."
Mr. Philips, whom his son called a "slightly built and self-effacing man," had few other interests, although he enjoyed reading American and European history.
Maritime journalism occupied him completely. He was so keen on writing that when he used to take his sons skiing, he sat waiting for them in the car, windows cracked, puffing his pipe and pounding out stories on a typewriter. When he got cold he'd go into the lodge for coffee. Then he'd go out and write some more.
Also surviving are his wife of 40 years, Suzanne Philips, Lake Forest Park; son Christopher Philips, Bothell; mother, Doris Philips, Seattle; sister, Martha Schilling, Walla Walla; and two granddaughters.
| HOME | EMAIL | SURNAMES |
Return to The Pennocks of Primitive Hall website.
The information in this database may contain errors. If you find any questionable data, or if you have something to add my findings, please feel free to e-mail me by clicking on the "E-MAIL" link above. Thank you!
Page built by Gedpage Version 2.21 ©2009 on 07 July 2020