Richard K. Warren, former publisher of BDN, dies at 87

BANGOR – Richard Kearney Warren, who as publisher led the Bangor Daily News in its transition from molten lead to computers and guided its physical relocation from Exchange Street to Buck Street, died early Friday morning at the age of 87.

Warren served as publisher of the Bangor newspaper from 1955 until his retirement in 1984, handing the reins to his son, current publisher Richard J. Warren. The elder Warren was a past president of the Maine Daily Newspaper Association and the New England Newspaper Association.

Born April 13, 1920 in New York City, Richard K. Warren was the son of Anna Kearney and George Earle Warren, who became a nationally prominent banker and trustee of Columbia University.

Richard Warren’s interest was chemistry, and he pursued his studies successfully, earning a bachelor of science degree in 1942 from the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University. After graduation, he held a position for a brief time as chemist for the General Chemical Co. of Edgewater, N.J., and later was a supervisor at the West Virginia Ordnance Works.

In 1943, Warren marked two milestones in life. He married Joanne Jordan, daughter of the late Fred D. Jordan and Lillis T. Jordan, both former publishers of the Bangor Daily News. With the nation at war, he enlisted as an apprentice seaman in the U.S. Naval Reserve and from 1944 to 1946 saw service aboard the USS Jack W. Wilke, a destroyer escort in a submarine killer group operating in the North Atlantic. During his tour, he served as the ship’s gunnery officer and later was promoted to executive officer before being released from active duty in February 1946 with the rank of lieutenant (j.g.).

The year 1946 was a turning point for Warren. When his father-in-law, Fred Jordan, became ill, Warren entered a transition in his professional life, to that of newspaper executive. He joined the Bangor Daily News in 1946, and when Fred Jordan died in 1947, he worked closely with his widow, Publisher Lillis Jordan, as the paper’s treasurer and assistant publisher. During this period, the chemist-turned-newspaperman spent 18 months immersed in the publishing business at the Hartford Times in Hartford, Conn. The Times was an afternoon paper that published for 159 years before closing in 1976.

By the time he was elected publisher and vice president of the Bangor Daily News in 1955, Warren had completed a term as president of the Maine Daily Newspaper Association, and later served as president of the New England Newspaper Association, as director of the New England Newspaper Advertising Bureau and as a member of the postal committee for the American Newspaper Publishers Association.

For nearly three decades, Warren guided his newspaper through a series of physical and technological changes. In 1955, the BDN moved from Exchange Street to the corner of Main and Buck streets, the mail room later was modernized and new presses were added. In the production process, the Linotype machines, capable of producing lines of characters molded from hot lead, were phased out, displaced by computers for electronic editing and page composition. Satellite dishes were installed on the roof to take delivery of news from the major wire services.

In 1984, he announced with “great pride and pleasure” that he was turning over day-to-day operations of the newspaper and the title of publisher to his son, Richard Jordan Warren.

In 1986, when he formally retired from active involvement in the Bangor Daily News, the elder Warren observed to a reporter that up until the time he came to the BDN to help the family of the ailing Fred Jordan, he had been only a “great reader of newspapers.” Close friends Merrill (“Pappy”) and Wilma (“Willie”) Bradford recalled a conversation with Warren at his father’s New York apartment on the turns in his life that led him to the BDN and Bangor, where he became a quiet, steadying force in the community.

A man who avoided the spotlight, Warren invested his energy in the newspaper, its employees and the community served by the Bangor Daily News.

“I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to work with Dick during the late 1960s,” said Robert Stairs, vice president and treasurer of the Bangor Daily News. “Everyone thought he was a true gentleman, with a quick sense of humor. He set a good example of the importance of being respectful of fellow employees and customers.”

Under his guidance, the newspaper’s charitable influence increased through Bangor Daily News Charities and its annual Christmas fund drive to assist the less fortunate through the work of The Salvation Army.

In the community, Warren had been a director of the Chamber of Commerce and the YMCA board, served on the advisory board of St. Joseph Hospital and the Bangor Symphony, and was active in the Rotary Club, the Good Samaritan Home Association (now the Good Samaritan Agency) and as a director of the Merrill Trust Co.

In 1965 he was asked to participate on the citizens advisory committee for the reuse of Dow Air Force Base in Bangor.

“I was pleased to be involved,” he told a reporter in 1986, observing that “a lot of people said that Dow’s closing would be the end of Bangor. But many of us saw it as a great opportunity that came at a very good time.”

A man of conviction, whose strong opinions often resonated through his newspaper’s editorials, Warren allowed that he was “pleased that the transition took place so easily. In fact, the decision to close the base was probably for the best.”

In addition to his more than 40-year affiliation with the Bangor Daily News, 29 of them as its publisher, Warren also had been president of Courier Publications, which published the Courier-Gazette in Rockland and six weeklies. He sold those papers in 1999.

People at the BDN remember him as a publisher who put his newspaper and its employees first, his decisions and actions affirming his company’s culture as one that supports the people who work there, and their families.

“I had the greatest respect for him as publisher and editor,” remarked Arthur E. McKenzie, longtime general manager of the BDN, now retired. “He really cared for his employees.”

McKenzie remembers Warren as a good leader, absolutely honest, who cared for the people he led and their newspaper.

“If I had one word to say for him,” said McKenzie, “it would be integrity.”

Editor’s Note: A complete obituary for Richard K. Warren will be published in the BDN early next week.