Ad Club Blog

Paul McDermott | A Boston Advertising Legend & Leader [Share Your Thoughts & Memories]

15 Feb 2012 10:28 AM | John DeGray (Administrator)

The New England advertising community lost a good friend on Thursday, February 9. Paul McDermott, who was Executive Director of the Ad Club for much of the '60s and '70s died peacefully, we're told, at the age of 76, after enduring Parkinson's Disease for many years.

I have good memories of Paul, whom I met in 1955 when we both freshmen at Boston College. He soon disappeared from BC, though, and I didn't see him again until around 1960, when I had begun my advertising agency career at Doremus & Company. I thought I'd like to learn something about public relations and publicity and took a class in it. So did Paul. At the time, as I recall, he was doing some press work in the political world. (Oh, Paul was always very political.)

Paul, I learned, had left BC to go to BU, which was where he graduated. We shared a joke over the years, a lie actually, that we had gone to Harvard together. Unfortunately nobody ever believed us, but we had fun with it.

As Executive Director of the Ad Club (this was before the position was elevated to President) Paul was the key person in some pretty formative years for Boston and New England advertising, as the industry grew increasingly more professional and the Hatch Awards grew from an annual luncheon at which seven or eight category awards were handed out to the gala event it became during his tenure.

We are in your debt, Paul, and will miss you.

- Terry MacDonald

[PLEASE SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS AND MEMORIES WITH US]

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