Richard E. "Rick" Davis, a stockbroker-turned-publisher, died Tuesday morning at his home after a heart attack. He was 65. Publisher brought Hawaii
to mainland and islandersRichard "Rick" Davis / Publisher and stockbroker
SEE ALSO: OBITUARIES
By Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.comFriends remember Davis as a man who never let a setback get him down, even previous heart problems, but just went on to the next thing with an optimistic attitude.
"He was just one prince of a guy," said friend F.T. "Bamboo" Opperman, who knew Davis both as a fellow boat owner and as a member of the Outrigger Canoe Club.
"There was not a harmful bone in his body," said Opperman, whose business is commercial real estate. "He was a gentleman, a good father, a good husband, always very optimistic" no matter what happened to him, Opperman said.
Davis loved practical jokes, especially computer-generated fake letters. In recent years he learned card tricks and became quite good at them.
Tired of cartoonlike swimming-fish screensavers, he once took an early Macintosh computer, ripped the insides out, waterproofed it and turned it into an aquarium so he could look at real fish in the office.
Davis believed in the direct approach to most aspects of life, friends say. If he felt he had received less-than-perfect treatment from a local store or other business, he would call or write directly to the chain's national president.
In 1978, Davis created Aloha Magazine, a glossy publication aimed at mainland readers, and ran it for 20 years before closing it in mid-1998, when advertising revenues had fallen and Hawaii was in an economic slump. The magazine had also lost the support of the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau, which used to include its travel planner in the publication but had passed it to another publisher.
Davis had several other Hawaii tourist destination-related publications and at his death was producing the Kamaaina Guide, a new magazine aimed at local readership to get them to enjoy low prices at local tourist attractions.
He also was publishing community newspapers for the residential complexes Ewa by Gentry, Waikele and Mililani, and always looking for new publishing opportunities.
Davis was born in Freeport, Long Island, and grew up in Hollywood, Fla. He attended the University of Florida-Gainesville and the New York Institute of Finance.
He was a Wall Street broker when he joined the Army and came to Hawaii in the service in 1958.
Out of the service, he lived in Phoenix, where he had a brokerage business.
He moved to Hawaii in 1968 and opened his own firm, Davis Securities.
In the early 1970s he had a stock watch program, "Stock Market Watch with Rick Davis," on KHON-TV.
He is survived by wife Valerie, son Jeff, daughter Pam Davis and sister Lee Wachtstetter of Hollywood, Fla.
A memorial service will be held 8:30 a.m. Friday at the Outrigger Canoe Club in Waikiki.