Fred A. Stickel, who turned The Oregonian from a sleepy, dysfunctional daily into one of America's best regional newspapers during 34 years as its publisher, died Sunday. He was 93.
Stickel cemented his legacy by promoting The Oregonian's first African American editor and later hiring its first woman editor. He merged the staff of the shuttered Oregon Journal with his own, and ushered in an era of computer-generated pages with color photos.
He also made the newspaper a financial powerhouse and oversaw a hiring blitz that invigorated the news staff. The Oregonian won five Pulitzer Prizes during Stickel's tenure.
"I worked with Fred for over 50 years starting at The Jersey Journal. He was a superb executive with a great feeling for his readers, his advertisers and his community," Donald Newhouse, President of Advance Publications said today. "Fred was also great company. I was a friend to him and Peggy for all those years."
Stickel's wife, the former Margaret Ann "Peggy" Dunne, died in 2008.
"I miss him," said Patrick Stickel, who worked under his father at the newspaper from 1987 until 2009, when he retired as president. "I loved working for him. He was my father, my boss and my best friend."
Relationships between news staffs and publishers are often uneasy, because it takes money to produce great journalism. But Stickel was a beloved figure in The Oregonian newsroom - a place he entered only occasionally - because he was generous with those who produced the news. On occasions when he addressed staffers, he was often given standing ovations.
"Fred Stickel was a great publisher during four decades when the community relied on printed newspapers and the business success allowed investment in them," said Sandy Rowe, whom Stickel hired in 1993.
"Most important for the employees of The Oregonian, Fred was the glue that made us family," she said. "Fred Stickel treated each one of us with utmost respect and concern. He was a tough Marine with a big heart."
Stickel was consistently the best-dressed man in the building and carried a bias against the roguish dress he often saw in the newsroom. He was given to crisp suits and ties, with perfect cufflinks. He worked deep into his 80s, looking like he could still march a few miles in combat boots.
He drove a shiny red Corvette convertible. The car made an appearance in a staff-made spoof video, with Stickel at the wheel tossing papers out as if he were a delivery boy. The news staff threw him a huge party on his 80th birthday, and another one when he retired in 2009.
Stickel will be remembered not only as a gifted newspaper manager and publisher, but an ardent voice for the city he adopted. He supported the arts, headed the Citizens Crime Commission, and was named Portland First Citizen in 1996.
He also will be remembered for the causes he stood against.
Stickel in 1992 took the rare step of putting his name on an editorial condemning Measure 9, which would have enforced job discrimination against gays and lesbians. Then he ran the story on the front page.
"I don't think anybody should be discriminated against for any damn reason," Stickel said.
Stickel's values, as a Roman Catholic, also bled into his public positions. When state health officials wanted to run ads in The Oregonian urging teens to use condoms, he told them no because he didn't think kids should be having sex. He took heat for the decision.
When he learned from his secretary that Willamette Week wanted to talk to him about condoms, he passed the alternative paper an answer: "Tell 'em that I don't use 'em."
Stickel was born in Weehawken, New Jersey, on Nov. 18, 1921, attended a Jesuit military school in New York, and later went to Georgetown University. During a Christmas break in the Garden State, he met his future wife, Peggy.
He joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1942, transferred his Georgetown credits to a school in New Jersey, and graduated from officer candidate school in spring of 1943. He married Dunne before shipping out for combat duty on Guadalcanal the following year. Later, his unit took heavy fire as it landed on Guam.
Stickel was later promoted to captain. He never missed a Marine Corps birthday gathering, said his longtime friend, retired Oregon Supreme Court Justice George Van Hoomissen. "Fred was a very sweet fellow. I always found him to be interested in other people and just a wonderful man."
After the war, he sold newspaper advertising at The Jersey Journal, in Hoboken, and started a family. Peggy Stickel gave birth to the first of six children, Fred Stickel Jr., in 1946.
At the Jersey Journal, Fred Stickel Sr. was a brilliant ad salesman. He established a bond with Donald Newhouse, son of the publishing giant S.I. Newhouse. "Everything I know about advertising, I know because Fred taught me," Donald Newhouse said seven years ago.
Stickel went to work for the Newhouse newspaper chain in November 1951 and never left.
The company moved Stickel and his family to Portland in 1967 so he could serve as general manager of The Oregonian. He became president in 1972, and publisher in 1975.
In 1982, Stickel closed the city's afternoon paper, the Oregon Journal, and folded its staff into The Oregonian. The sudden merger of reporters and editors, who for years had fought like bulldogs for stories, meant they were now allies. And it was ugly.
"I never realized the degree of hostility that existed between" them, Stickel said.
But the newspaper thrived. By 1990, advertising in The Oregonian - the oldest continually operated business in the state - was sizzling. More than half of the families in the growing Portland metropolitan area were subscribers, with circulation of The Sunday Oregonian at 421,000.
But Stickel's top newsroom editors were at loggerheads. Bill Hilliard, whom he had installed as the newspaper's first African American editor, had all but quit talking to his closest subordinate.
When Hilliard announced his plan to retire, Stickel lured Rowe to Portland in 1993 and handed her the keys to the newsroom.
Two years later, a cataclysmic spike in the cost of newsprint sent newspapers across the country into a spiral, with layoffs and closures coast to coast.
Stickel allowed Rowe to spend freely to find the picks of the litter and put them to work. The new blood helped perk up a newsroom that already had a cadre of top-shelf reporters and editors, including Richard Read and Tom Hallman Jr.
Rowe and her handpicked top subordinate, Peter Bhatia, hired more than 50 reporters and editors, installing three Pulitzer Prize winners - Jacqui Banaszysnki, Amanda Bennett and Stephen Engelberg - as managers. The newsroom won five Pulitzer Prizes, a George Polk Award, and scores of other national journalism awards from the late 1990s until Stickel's retirement.
Stickel had so much confidence in those directing the news and opinion sections of the newspaper that he did his best to stay out of their way.
In 2004, he was one of two members of The Oregonian's Editorial Board to endorse George W. Bush for president. The consensus opinion was that then-U.S. Sen. John Kerry was the better choice. Stickel, disappointed by the decision, said later that he thought it would be foolish to exercise his power to override the decision.
"Why would you have an editor of the editorial board, why would you have six associate editors, if you're going to sit there and tell them what to do?"
Stickel didn't shrink from nepotism. His son Geoffrey worked as an artist and graphic designer; daughter Bridget Otto served as a features writer and editor; and son Patrick - who had followed him into the Marines - became president of what was then called The Oregonian Publishing Co.
At his retirement on Sept. 19, 2009, Stickel was candid about his role in the newspaper and his concerns about the industry as printed papers move into a digital future.
"I am 87 years old," Stickel said. "I love this newspaper and the essential role it plays in Oregon and this community. But it is time for me to retire and make way for new leadership."
Donald Newhouse, then president of Advance Publications, had talked him out of retiring several times. He told The Oregonian at the time, "I have never met another executive with his ability to lead, to inspire, to adapt to an ever-changing world. He is unique, irreplaceable and he is my friend."
He is survived by children Fred Jr. and Patrick of Portland, Daisy of Boston, Massachusetts, Geoffrey of Dallas, Texas, James of Yakima, Washington, and Bridget Otto of Portland. He is also survived by his daughters-in-law, Sydney Stickel and Debbie Stickel, both of Portland, and Amy Stickel of Yakima, Washington, Salmeh Stickel of Dallas, as well as his son-in-law Douglas Otto of Portland. He is also survived by numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Funeral service information has not yet been released.
-- Jack Hart, The Oregonian's former writing coach and managing editor, contributed much of the reporting for this story.
-- Bryan Denson and Nick Budnick
bdenson@oregonian.com
503-294-7614; @Bryan_Denson