Recollections from (Dee) Wayne White

I was art director at Albert Frank-Guenther Law for 20 years (1958−78) and at MacFar­land Adver­tising before that. From ​’78 until retire­ment in ​’88 I was art director at CRS Adver­tising, a Charles Schwab agency. I free lanced part time for about five years after retire­ment. Albert Frank-Guenther Law was a New York agency with five offices around the country. It was the second oldest ad agency in the U.S., founded in 1872, J. Walter Thompson being the oldest. AFGL no longer exists. Foote Cone & Belding bought the agency in 1977, closed the S.F. office in 1978, even­tu­ally selling it to former AFGL exec­u­tives, who later sold it to a British agency and after merging lost its identity.

A few memo­ries from my years at AFGL: we were located at 425 Bush St. on the 3^rd floor — we had most of the floor while a competitor, Doremas Adver­tising occu­pied the rest. P&H art was on the 4^th floor and P&H typog­ra­phers were on the 5^th as I recall. I worked frequently with Tom Hall and Chet Patterson and with their type shop. Our manager until the mid 60s was Lucrecia Kemper, an eccen­tric 6’ 2” lady who wore enor­mous hats and had a reserved table at the Palace Hotel, where she dined everyday with clients. During the holi­days she invited the staff to join her — what a treat! She had worked on the United Nations forma­tion in 1945, handling PR and knew every­body in town. She knew beans about adver­tising and once told Harvey Ward, a new client and amateur golf cham­pion, that he had to pay less atten­tion to golf and more to busi­ness (I was there and almost fell off my chair). Sadly she became senile and the two VPs took over manage­ment — Richard Cruik­shank and Richard Kreuzer. She kept her title, office and secre­tary for a few more years till she retired. In the early 60s AFGL was asked by Bank of America (a client) to put on our payroll a fellow from Cuba. Tony had been the ambas­sador to Spain under Batista and had fled during the revo­lu­tion; through contacts at the bank he went to work for us as a courier, sharing an office with me. He was the best dressed and best groomed employee in the office. Tony left us before we moved in 1968 to spiffier offices on Sutter St., in the remod­eled old White House building.

Before I joined the agency Dick Kreuzer was handling art and produc­tion and getting more involved in account handling. The agency hired Eulalie Fuller as produc­tion manager shortly before I joined. We had several copywriters/AEs over time — Eddy Bennett, Bob Connolly, Bob John­ston, Larry Larson, Ralph Grady and Bill Robin. Other produc­tion managers who came and went included: Alice Wells, Jane McKenzie, John Madden and Shawn Miller. I was the only art director. Some of the free lance artists and photog­ra­phers I worked with back then: Bob Thorsen, Bob Tamura, Ed Gross, Al Joe, Lon Fox, Lowell Herrero, Bayne Kihneman, Nick Carter, Ted Castle, and many I can’t remember. Our branch office usually employed about 20 – 24 people and when we closed there were about 15 of us.

In the early 70s we had a tiny client named Charles Schwab & Co. Mr. Cruik­shank who was by then sole manager advised Dick Kreuzer, the AE, to get rid of that client — it was too small and required too much time. He was right, but Dick K. was even more right — he saw the growth poten­tial. When Foote Cone closed the AFGL office in 1978 Chuck Schwab asked Dick K. to open an agency to serve his account, he did and asked me to join him, which I did. Boy, were we smart! It proved to be an exciting and rewarding 10 years. Dick Kreuzer moved to Oregon after he retired in 1987…my wife and I visited him and his wife there every year until his death in 2004. Dick Cruik­shank passed away a couple of years after that, he was a great guy to work for. After I retired I painted water­colors and showed my work in galleries and entered shows. I’m a member of the Cali­fornia Water­color Assoc. (along with Al Joe and David Broad) and served on its board for many years. I’m not active with the Asso­ci­a­tion anymore and don’t enter many shows, but I occa­sion­ally get a commis­sion to paint a land­scape or portrait. I enjoy painting plein air, espe­cially when trav­eling to Alaska and Wash­ington to visit two of my sons and grand­kids, or on vaca­tion trips. Last October I trav­eled with three sons (no wives) to France where I enjoyed painting in Honfleur on the Normandy coast.

I still keep in touch with Vicky Quattro and Eulalie Fuller Glaser from AFGL. On a personal note, in addi­tion to three sons I have one daughter and a five year old grandson living here in Walnut Creek. Two of my sons each have two chil­dren, ages 10 to 16. I don’t have any work samples handy from the AFGL days…some are prob­ably packed in the attic but I have no desire to get up there.

I’d never get a job in adver­tising these days, nor would I want one. Every­thing is so high tech now and from my ​“Old Geezer” point of view the quality of the ads do not compare with the golden days of adver­tising — the 1960s. I’ve never made the picnic because we’re either trav­eling or it’s my wife’s birthday, maybe I’ll make it this year. My regards to the Old Geezers who might remember me.

Regards, 

(Dee) Wayne White 2/1/12