Eddie Carlson Dies -- Business, Civic Leader Victim Of Cancer At 78

Edward E. Carlson, a man known for getting things done when others couldn't, died at a Seattle hospital last night at 78 after a long bout with cancer.

For more than half a century, when people wanted something done they called on ``Eddie,'' as he was known to everyone.

He was known as an approachable, friendly man who was also decisive, persuasive and enthusiastic.

Carlson took over management of faltering Seattle-area hotels and clubs - even giant United Airlines of Chicago - and whipped them into profitability. He dreamed up the Space Needle after seeing a revolving restaurant in Stuttgart, West Germany, and was one of the movers behind the successful 1962 Seattle World's Fair.

Carlson served on the boards of a number of corporations, including Seafirst Bank, Safeco, Univar and Weisfield's.

His service to the community also was wide and varied, reflected in the many boards and groups of which he was a member. These included the Virginia Mason Foundation; organizations such as the Pacific Science Center, the Seattle Repertory Theater and Fifth Avenue Theater; civic efforts such as Forward Thrust; and educational posts such as trustee of the University of Southern California and regent of Seattle University.

More recently, he was a University of Washington regent, a position he resigned in August because of failing health.

In 1976, the board of directors of UAL Corp. named a Boeing 747 for Carlson in recognition of his work and civic contributions. He was named Seattle's First Citizen in 1965 by the Seattle Real Estate Board and was selected one of the 50 giants of accomplishment by the American Academy of Achievement in 1972. He was chosen by The Associated Press in 1978 as one of the 10 most powerful people in Washington state.

One of the most fitting honors was the Horatio Alger Award presented in 1975 by the American Schools and Colleges Association to Carlson and others.

``This really proves that people who had very little in the way of family background and came from the wrong side of the tracks, with a little luck and a bit of hard work can still make it in this country,'' he told an interviewer at the time.

One of his most recent honors was the A.K. Guy award, presented by the Seattle YMCA in October, recognizing his civic service.

Carlson's beginnings were humble. He was born in Tacoma June 4, 1911, and moved with his divorced mother and sister to Seattle after completing grade school. He graduated in 1928 from Lincoln High School, where he was yell leader.

He went on to the UW, where he aspired to become a coxswain on a rowing team. Instead, he had to work part time to pay for his education. His first hotel job was as a page boy and bellhop at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel. He never finished his studies at the UW but was named its most distinguished alumnus for 1970, an honor that particularly pleased him.

He met his wife, Nell, a Bellingham native, while parking cars one summer at Mount Baker Lodge. She worked in the bakery. They were married in June 1936.

Carlson, who hated being poor during the Depression, had vowed he was going to ``eat well, own a boat, belong to a good golf club and own my own home,'' as he told an interviewer years later. He achieved all of the goals during his years in Seattle with Western Hotels.

Carlson worked up in the business to become president of the Seattle-based company in 1960. His first management opportunity came in 1936 when the chain's President Hotel in Mount Vernon needed a manager. He also managed Seattle's prestigious Rainier Club from 1937 to 1942.

After serving in the Navy Supply Corps as a lieutenant commander from 1942 to 1946, he came back to Western as a $500-a-month assistant to then-President Severt Thurston.

Donald Covey, president of UNICO, who knew Carlson for decades, said one of his favorite Carlson stories was that the late Thurston thought employee Carlson was spending too much time on outside activities.

In 1955, a call for Carlson from then-Gov. Arthur Langlie was directed through Thurston's office. With Thurston listening, Carlson reluctantly refused Langlie's request to head a world's fair commission, saying he needed to spend more time on business.

But he relented, the story goes, when the governor told him that people in the private sector needed to take on more public assignments and get things done, causing Thurston to ask: ``What the heck have you agreed to now?''

``But that's the legacy Carlson leaves,'' Covey said. ``He always stepped into a breach with a `can-do' attitude.''

Some frustrating breaches he tried to override but couldn't included an attempt to prevent the Seattle Pilots baseball team from moving to Milwaukee in 1970. He also resigned in frustration as a director of the troubled Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS) in 1982.

It was Carlson's savvy business leadership that built Western Hotels into Western International Hotels and later into the major international chain known today as Westin. He helped plan Seattle's Westin Towers and bought major properties worldwide to build Westin into a first-class company purchased last year from UAL by the Japanese-based Aoki Corp.

Carlson went to UAL and United Airlines as president and chief executive officer in 1970 after Westin became part of UAL. The country's largest airline had just lost $40 million. Within a month, he took dramatic steps to eliminate 150 daily departures (10 percent of its total schedule), canceled orders for new DC-10s and made other cutbacks that plunged employee morale to the bottom.

But his low-key personal appeals eventually built him respect in the company. He decentralized decision-making, making regional areas their own profit centers, and built the corporation back to a moneymaker.

Carlson moved up to UAL chairman in 1974, a position he held until April 1982, when he became chairman emeritus and moved back to Seattle. He was called back to Chicago to assist the board in restructuring United after Richard Ferris resigned as chairman in 1987.

Carlson is survived by his wife at the Horizon House retirement center; a son, Eugene, of Washington, D.C.; a daughter, Jane Williams, of Seattle; and three grandchildren.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Edward E. Carlson Endowment for Leadership at the UW.

Funeral services are pending.

`He was a dynamic leader'

-- ``He had the fantastic ability to think and perform in whatever

activity he got involved in.''

- Lynn Himmelmann, longtime Westin Hotels associate

-- ``He was one of the great citizens of this city.''

- Ewen Dingwall, hired by Carlson to be general manager of the 1962 Century 21 Exposition, the Seattle world's fair.

-- ``It's hard to imagine anyone who could have been closer to his

family. Family was absolutely central to his personality.''

- Gene Carlson, his son

-- ``He was a mover and shaker of this city, par excellence. He made things happen.''

- John Gilmore, president, Downtown Seattle Association

-- ``He was a dynamic leader whose interest in people was evident in the rapport he enjoyed with employees and in the many civic and community activities in which he participated.''

- Stephen Wolf, chairman, UAL Corp.

-- ``He was a role model we all need. He had tremendous integrity and he did a lot for our community.''

- Don Covey, president, Unico Properties

-- ``Of the people I've known in the Seattle business community, he

has done more than anyone else to inspire leadership, by example and spirit.'' - Jim Ellis, attorney and civic leader.