Banker Goodwin Chase, 88, adviser to ex-Gov. Dan Evans

TACOMA - Tacoma banker and civic leader Goodwin Chase, campaign adviser to former Gov. Dan Evans and informal consultant to several presidents, has died at 88.

"He really was an important part of my gubernatorial campaign, but more importantly, he became a longtime friend," said Evans, who served 12 years as governor from 1965 to 1977, on learning that Mr. Chase died in his sleep Saturday.

"He was an unusually able civic leader who not only participated as a strong business leader but gave himself to the public much more than most people would do," said Evans, who also served a term in the U.S. Senate. "He'll be missed."

Mr. Chase served as president and board chairman of the National Bank of Washington, helped found the Tacoma Art Museum and served as chairman of the federal Renegotiation Board, which recovered excessive profits from defense contractors.

"My father was an eclectic man," said his son Stephen Chase, who lives in San Francisco.

Born in Los Angeles on June 30, 1911, he briefly attended UCLA, but his family was hard hit by the Depression, so he quit in 1930 after one term and got a job as a national bank examiner.

His political activism started about the same time. He met President Franklin Roosevelt while serving as head of the Young Democrats of America, and offered FDR advice on financial issues.

"He started upward on this Herculean, meteoric rise primarily during the 1950s and 1960s," Stephen Chase said.

He fell in love with the Pacific Northwest during a business trip to Ellensburg and bought a small bank there. After retiring, he became president of Tacoma-based National Bank of Washington, and had four bank branches built in some of Tacoma's poorest neighborhoods.

"He put branches where no other banks would go," his son said, which earned him honors from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1969.

Mr. Chase ran Democrat Adlai Stevenson's presidential campaigns in Washington in 1952 and 1956, and was chairman of Washington Democrats for Nixon in 1972.

After he retired from banking in 1972, Mr. Chase set to work revitalizing downtown Tacoma. He also helped found the Pacific Northwest Ballet Association.

Besides son Stephen, Mr. Chase is survived by a daughter, Christine Kellogg of Lakewood, Pierce County. His wife of 58 years, Gudrun, and son Anthony died previously.