Second Eulogy for Art Rice

A bit delayed, but as promised, below is my eulogy for Art Rice. He was a good fellow, a good friend and a man of character.  That he shared his friendship with me has made me a better person.

Tina, Buddy, Caroline, thank you for the honor of eulogizing Art. 

It seems a long time ago, longer than it really was, that I opened an e-mail from Art letting me know he was off to receive a new liver but if things were to go wrong, would I please deliver one of the eulogies at his funeral.

I thought to myself, Art, you are way ahead of yourself and I put the note aside.  Then way too soon the going wrong part was all too real.

Trying to resurrect the memories of ten, fifteen, twenty years ago is no easy task.  Time lays down fog and that fog shrouds those memories.  I have trouble remembering twenty minutes ago; much less twenty years so I called on some of Art’s co-workers and friends, they being one and the same, to give me some help.

I first met Art in 1990. I was the director of marketing at a young, pharmaceutical company called TAP.  We wanted to start an intern program, and I needed top talent to build up the marketing department.  Fortunately, on the Northwestern University campus in the Kellogg School of Business, we found Art Rice.

At first impression, Art’s attire defined him. Bow ties. (Impressive enough that he could tie them.) Regimental ties.  (Of every color and pattern)  Sweaters wrapped around his neck. (crew neck preferred)  Sherbet-colored shorts. A double-breasted blue blazer with the big gold buttons.

He once said, “My dad told me when I reached 25 I should buy a double-breasted blue blazer, and I could wear it the rest of my life.”

It didn’t take long, however, before we discovered there was so much more to Art.

He laughed easily.  He pondered frequently. He was thoughtful.  If you posed a dilemma, he didn’t respond immediately. There was always a brief delay that let you know he listened to you.  Art was a listener.  Yet, when he talked, there was substance and there was inquisitiveness in his response that left room for continued dialogue.  He was serious but never took himself too seriously.

As I think back on those days, I believe Art’s style made him particularly effective with the researchers and physicians with whom he worked though he was no less effective with people from all parts of the company.  Everyone was comfortable with Art, even if they were engaged with him in some disagreement or conflict.

In 1991 Art took a career job with TAP and became the corner stone of a great marketing department.  Right from the beginning, we didn’t make it easy for him. Despite no experience launching a drug, we handed him responsibility for what we hoped would be the crown jewel of the company, Prevacid, a drug to treat ulcer disease.

TAP wasn’t in a position to teach Art, because the company didn’t have the experience either.  It turned out Art was the right person at the right time in the right job. He learned quickly and as he learned, he taught the company. 

Prevacid became one of the most successful launches in the U.S. pharmaceutical history, becoming a multi-billion dollar product.

My goal this afternoon is not to recite Art’s resume. My goal is to share some good stories about him, stories that come from my own experience and the experiences of others, stories that I think will illuminate what a character Art was and how much his character shaped the people around him.

Plumbing the depths of Art’s character is a productive

endeavor revealing many traits to admire and emulate. For the moment, I’d like you to think of him as an optimist coated in resilience dressed by Brooks Brothers.

Optimism was one of Art’s most endearing traits.

Jeff Stewart shared a story, a harrowing story, about a Delta flight out of Calgary following a marketing meeting in Banff.  Shortly after lift-off, still in its climb, the Delta jet lost an engine. Didn’t lose it, it exploded. The plane veered to the left, at a 45-degree angle and a plane full of TAP employees thought it was the last marketing meeting they’d ever attend.  But not Art. As the story was later told, and re-told, while the pilot was increasing power in the good engine to level the plane and return to the airport, while the outcome was still much in doubt, Art was pulling his credit card from his wallet, swiping it on the plane phone and calling to get a reservation on another flight.

When he was asked how he could even think to do that in such a dire moment, he replied, “The odds against a plane crash are astronomical.  I have to get back to Chicago tonight.”

While everyone else overnighted in Calgary waiting for another plane, Art was back in Chicago in his own bed.

His competitive streak was as enduring as his optimism was endearing.  On one occasion, Art’s fashion consciousness, resilience, competitiveness, and optimism collided in the wilderness on a trip that started out badly with a maple syrup incident.

I had planned four days of bushwhacking through the Maine wilderness for the TAP marketing leadership team.    While the rest of us arrived in Maine in  hiking/camping gear, Art showed up wearing Case-Swiss tennis shoes, Brooks Brothers Bermuda shorts and a white polo shirt.

We were all thinking the same thing, but I think Jeff Stewart said it.

“Art, we’re going camping not to Wimbledon.” 

During the days leading up to the trip, Art kept telling me he couldn’t wait for a Maine breakfast with fresh, all-natural, tree-tapped maple syrup.   Maine, neighbor to Vermont and Quebec, the two biggest producers of maple syrup, was bound to have natural syrup for a big stack of pancakes.  So imagine his surprise and chagrin when the waitress showed up with two plastic, foil-sealed packets of what was effectively Aunt Jemima syrup tapped from a factory line in Georgia.  It was one of the few times that I knew Art that he was visibly and outwardly upset. We had to threaten to take away his needlepoint belt to get him to calm him down.

I’ll interrupt this story to point out something many of you already know. Even if I’d intercepted the waitress and put that syrup in a container, Art would have known it wasn’t real.  He had the same devotion to Canada Dry Ginger Ale.  And as Doug Cole reminded me, he could tell the difference between his favorite and any other.

He felt the same way about Tropicana Orange Juice.  Doug said he never saw Art lose his temper about the absence of either, but no one who tried to substitute for them ever forgot those were his favorites. 

What followed the maple syrup incident was four days of rain, cold and exaggerated near-starvation all of which took a back seat to day four’s Bermuda shorts incident.  On that last day while navigating a mud-filled ditch, Art was forced to slide down a hill in those white Bermuda shorts.  The backside was covered with mud. Sensing a “told you so” moment; I told Art he never should have worn those shorts and he was never going to get the mud out of them.  Art just as emphatically told me he would.

About a six weeks ago, Art reminded me those shorts were up in his closet . . .and they were clean.  

Art’s competitiveness ran deep and wide.

A beautiful, hot sunny day on the sand dunes south of Cabo San Lucas would turn into a NASCAR race between the two of us.

Art and I were riding four-wheeled dune buggies up and down the sand hills. Riding turned into racing. Soon we were flying across the dunes trying to beat each other to an agreed upon finish line when Art made an abrupt turn and the ATV turned over on him several times with him underneath it each time it rolled. We got to the wreckage and found him dazed, perhaps even in shock. Without so much as a “take me to the hospital”, Art looked up and said, “I won.”

But even in the direst situations, the softer, gentler, kinder Art was never far away.

Scott Maske recalled a meeting in Art’s office with Art, Scott, Stafford O’Kelly, TAP’s CFO and me.  As recounted,  “a testosterone-charged verbal altercation” took place between me and Stafford leading to a demand by me that Stafford step outside so we could duke it out.  Scott noted Art had beaten a quick retreat from the office so Scott was left to diffuse the situation.  When asked later why he’d made such a quick departure, Art replied, “I’m a lover not a fighter.” Of course, today we know what a fighter Art was.

Art was not only a good friend but he was an excellent business partner.  His insight and thoughtfulness made him a popular addition to any meeting. Because we spent so much time together, Art was someone we thought we knew well, but occasionally he surprised us.

Robin Powers recalled a planning meeting we held in Beaver Creek, Colorado. We arrived in the middle of what turned out to be about a 50” snowfall.  Like most of our business meetings we’d left room for some recreation, and skiing was the recreation we chose. Unfortunately, all the wide-bottomed skis suitable for this deep a snowfall were rented so we were doomed to normal skis that simply don’t work very well.

In short order, we all ended up struggling through the snow on different parts of the mountain except for Robin and Art.  Later when I came across Robin, she was laughing and said something like “You won’t believe it. Art was cussing up a storm.” He’d gotten so frustrated with those skis mismatched to the snow that even he let loose. Still, none of us could believe it.  It didn’t take long for Art to return to his usual modest self.

As we were sitting around our condo drinking wine and talking, Art came out of his room wearing matching top and bottom cowboy pajamas.  (He owned them before we went to Colorado) That would have been amusing enough, but we fell on the floor laughing when we saw he’d buttoned every single button on the shirt.

Art was a fellow of inestimable talent and a dash or two of quirkiness. He’d never launched a pharmaceutical drug then went on to launch one of the most successful drugs in industry history.  He created one of the most memorable brands – a pink stomach named Tummy - that survives to this day.  He helped overcome the objections of an FDA that wanted to keep Prevacid off the market.  He became a mainstay in the gastroenterology industry and among the industry’s physician leaders.  He was an honored member of the John Wesley Powell Society and a sailor afraid of no sea.

All the while he carried a Hartmann duffle bag instead of a briefcase.  He called the sales force “my people”.  He would travel to places off Google’s map in search of a better vanilla milk shake.  He wore raspberry-colored shorts. He didn’t know a damn thing about baseball.

How a man who grew up in Boston didn’t understand baseball always amazed me.

Scott Maske reminded me of a meeting with the former president of Abbott, Tom Hodgson. During that meeting we were introducing a new campaign for Prevacid that used baseball allegorically to combine three different products to treat a cause of ulcers.  It became clear from the start that Art knew nothing about baseball and was confusing umpires with referees. It wasn’t ten minutes before Tom was making fun of him and about 10 seconds after that for the rest of us to join in.  Art was such a good sport, he simply took the ribbing and ultimately got the money he was looking for.

He didn’t know baseball, but he knew his business and he knew his product and he knew and loved his customers.  Art was a master working with our key opinion leaders, the finest and most well known gastroenterologists in the world. It was absolutely amazing to watch them working together and how quickly men with more degrees than a thermometer came to respect Art.

So it was with some horror and a little bit of Rodney Dangerfieldesque amusement that we watched Art nearly kill our single most important investigator; the leader of the Prevacid advisory board, the doctor who would make our presentation to the FDA, the chief of medicine of the University of Connecticut, Dr. Jim Freston. 

We were playing golf during an advisory board meeting. Art and I were waiting in the fairway for Jim and his group to finish putting when Art decided to go ahead and hit his ball, because he couldn’t reach the green. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred he’d be right. But not this time.

In retrospect I’ll tell you if had Art applied himself, he could have been a good golfer. He had a nice upright swing and he delivered the club to the ball the same way, consistently.

The minute that ball left the ground it was clear Art had hit the shot of his novice golf career and it was going to land on the green.  The big question was where?   We all began to yell “Fore!” and  “Run!”

Jim Freston heard us just in time to turn around and have that ball hit him squarely in the stomach.  Art was mortified and probably apologized about a thousand times. Jim loved Art, so eventually all was forgiven.

Art miscalculated that golf shot on that day, but Art rarely miscalculated, In fact, Art was actually quite clever.  

Jeff Stewart shared another story about a meeting held in Providence, Rhode Island that ended on 9/11.  Like so many people they were stranded with no plane service. Art said, “let’s rent a car” a suggestion that was met with derision by his less optimistic teammates. 

“We’ll never get a car. Everybody is trying to get a car.”

So what did Art do? He waited in the rental lot for a car to come in, and before the driver could turn it in, he simply climbed into the car, gave his credit card to the attendant and they drove back to Chicago.”

I sat down with Art for three hours a few weeks ago.   As we revisited our days together at TAP, I reminded him that he occasionally would second-guess his career choice. He told me back then that many of his friends had gone on to greater wealth in the financial industry, and he wondered if he’d somehow missed the train he should have boarded.

Art didn’t board the wrong train.  He helped create thousands of new jobs; ease the suffering of millions of people; was a friend and mentor to hundreds. I reminded him that his was a career that few would ever experience. I thanked him for being such a good friend to so many. For being Uncle Art to my children. For providing such a formidable leadership example to his friends and to “his people”

For many people, success comes at the expense of someone else. Not Art’s success.  He had broad shoulders on which there was room for everyone he encountered. 

What I’ll remember most about him was that he never had an ill word to say about anyone.  I believe that of all the gifts God gave Art it was the one He intended for him to share with everyone he encountered with the hope that we’d learn to behave the same way. We have a formidable new ally in Heaven, and I expect he’s going to do his best to remind us everyday that the knucklehead who just cut you off at the exit may have some redeeming qualities. 

I’m certain that God was waiting for Art with the perfect vanilla shake – no vanilla extract or artificial anything. Real vanilla. Perfect temperature.   Brother Andre, the patron Saint of Maple Syrup, was near-by with a pot of it, freshly tapped. I’m pretty sure there’s no patron saint of Hartmann duffle bags, but in his closet were a dozen double-breasted, gold-buttoned blue blazers. Ties? He only has to imagine the color or pattern.  Mud resistant Bermuda shorts fill the dresser.   A Canada Dry Ginger Ale tap is on one side of the counter.  Tropicana is piped right into his refrigerator.

Tina, Buddy, Caroline – all of us are better people because we knew Art even if the world is poorer because he’s gone.  

He had a favorite speech he delivered to a TAP sales meeting. Its source of inspiration was a song by Lee Ann Womack called I Hope You Dance.  Its refrain was simple.

When you get the choice to sit out or dance, I hope you dance. 

I believe Art left us a blueprint and a set of instructions. His wish for us is to dance.