Daniel Herrick, who lives at St. Andrews Club, got his MBA while serving in the Navy for 20 years. His long civilian career in finance included stints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
Daniel Herrick doesn’t look 92. He doesn’t act it, either, as he describes the events of his life in vivid detail.
He calls himself “one of the luckiest people I know,” and good luck is a recurring theme as he recounts his 20-year naval career and subsequent success in business.
During World War II, he served on the USS Lansdowne, a destroyer stationed in the South Pacific. “They called it Lucky L,” he says. “We were never hit.”
He was transferred to Hawaii, then to Miami at war’s end — lucky warm-weather assignments for a kid from New Jersey.
“They sent me down to Miami and gave me what’s called a ‘spot promotion’ to lieutenant. I was all of 25. This was at the Fifth Naval District, and I was in charge of petroleum products for the ships in the Florida area,” Herrick says.
“I lucked into getting an apartment in Miami, which in those days was very difficult, and mine was right on Biscayne Bay with sailboats going by. And there were a lot of girls in Miami. I thought, ‘boy, this is the duty!’ ”
Other lucky transfers included Guam — “I lived in a quonset hut on a cliff overlooking the harbor, with a dog, a piano and an American girlfriend” — and later San Diego, where he and his first wife had a home on Naval Air Station North Island.
Years later, after a divorce, Herrick was assigned to work in personnel at the Department of the Navy in Washington, D.C. Being a single man, one of his extracurricular duties was White House aide, helping President and Mrs. Truman host dinners and receptions.
“I would be at the head of the receiving line, introducing guests to the president and first lady,” he says. “The Trumans were nice as could be. They treated me like family.”
While in Washington he met and married his second wife, a member of the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). He attended Harvard Business School and earned an MBA on the Navy’s dime — another stroke of luck that helped launch his post-Navy career in finance.
Now divorced a second time but happily retired at St. Andrews Club, Herrick stays active swimming, spending time with family (two grown daughters and six grandchildren), and traveling around the world.
Last year he cruised with friends from Hong Kong to New York aboard the Queen Mary 2.
And it appears his famous luck is still holding: after taking up croquet at age 91, he was given the “rookie of the year” award.
— Paula Detwiller
Q. Where did you grow up and go to school?
A. I grew up in Montclair, N.J., and graduated from Montclair High School. I attended the University of Virginia, planning to become a lawyer. While there, I joined the Navy ROTC. Well, I got my college diploma on June 15, 1942, and on June 30, they commissioned me as an ensign in the Navy Supply Corps, and I went on active duty. I was sent to a destroyer in the South Pacific called the USS Lansdowne. I caught up with the ship on Dec. 30, 1942, in Noumea, New Caledonia. I was 21.
Q. What professions have you worked in?
A. At the end of the war, I left the Naval Reserves and joined the full Navy. Over the next 20 years, I worked in naval supply operations and personnel. At one point, the Navy sent me to Harvard Business School to get an MBA, so I was well-equipped to work in finance when I got out. My first civilian job was with the W.R. Grace Company. I later became chief financial officer for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. I was there 17 years before being recruited to join the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., as their CFO. I retired for good in 1995.
Q. How did serving in the military during WWII change you?
A. It made me grow up from being a boy to a man. Before that, I’d never had any real responsibility. I’d worked as a waiter at the country club during the summer, but that was about it. So to be sent to a destroyer and all of a sudden be in charge of a group of men and have to set up an office and order supplies and food for the ship — that was completely new.
Q. What advice do you have for a young person selecting a career today?
A. I have said this to my grandchildren: I think young people, when they get out of college, should do a couple of years of service to their country, in the military, the Peace Corps, some kind of government service. It’s a way of maturing that helps them as well as the country.
Q. How did you choose to make your home in St. Andrews?
A. A high school classmate of mine had a place here, and about 25 years ago he invited me down for a couple of days. I thought, “Boy, this is a nice place, the lawns are so green and well-kept, and the buildings are all freshly painted.”
About 25 years later, after my friend had died, I had occasion to come back here, and by gosh, the grass was still manicured, the houses were still painted nicely. After renting here for a while, I decided to buy a unit and fix it up.
Q. What is your favorite part about living in St. Andrews?
A. The people are nice. I swim a lot, and I’ve taken up croquet, so I like the pool and the croquet courts. And I like to walk on the beach, which is just across the street.
Q. Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions?
A. Yes — one of my professors at Harvard Business School, Gen. Georges Doriot, a Frenchman … in the U.S. Army. He owned the first venture capital company in the U.S. He was a maverick who didn’t use the typical Harvard Business School “case study” approach to teaching.
Doriot liked to get our creative juices flowing. He’d make us think of a new idea for a business every single week. One time my classmates and I came up with the idea of a flat television set that you’d put up on a wall. In those days, that was pretty far-out thinking! But now we have it.
Q. What book are you reading now?
A. The Admirals, by Walter Borneman, about the five-star admirals who won WWII at sea. And I just finished a good book by David McCollough called The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris.
Q. If your life story were made into a movie, who would you want to play you?
A. Richard Burton. He [could] play anybody and … [had] wonderful taste in women.
Q. Do you have a favorite quote?
A. The chief justice of the United States, Oliver Wendell Holmes, was walking down Constitution Avenue one day with his law clerk, and two pretty girls walked by. Holmes leaned down to his law clerk and said, “I wish I was 75 again.” I think that’s a wonderful quote, and I feel that way, too, sometimes.
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