The Passing Of A Legend
By: Scott Allison
Today in Seattle, there is a celebration of the life of David McLean Marriott who passed away on April 30th. There are so many reasons to celebrate the life of this incredible man, a true legend in the PR and crisis communications industries, and a beloved member of the Allison+Partners family.
David had long been an institution in the Seattle area after running his own successful firm, Gogerty Marriott. He was known as one of the premier crisis communications experts in the country and we were incredibly blessed when David joined Allison+Partners in 2015. It was a true honor to have him work at our firm and his experience was invaluable to our local Seattle team, in addition to his collaboration with teams across our offices throughout the world.
David worked on many well-known crisis issues during his career. None was more famous than his work on the crash of Alaska Airlines flight 261 which took place on January 31, 2000. It was a very difficult time for the airline and the Seattle community and David’s work was a text book example of best-in-class crisis communications. In fact, the work is included in many case studies taught at public relations programs at universities around the country. When we were talking to British Airways in January about potentially working for them, I caught up with David to ask about the case. The work done then is still incredibly timely and we discussed how social media would have made the situation much different today. To have someone in our firm that I could speak to regularly to gain counsel on a variety of sensitive issues was of tremendous value to me and Allison+Partners.
In addition to being one of the great communication’s professionals of our time, David was a wonderful human being, a great father and husband and a jazz loving gift to the local community as well as someone who donated so much time to so many people.
David Marriott will be missed by many, but never forgotten.
Scott Allison is co-founder, chairman and CEO of Allison+Partners.
