Gordon A. Dancer, 72, who started cutting the grass in front of W. Clement Stone’s Combined Insurance Co. offices as a teen and then went on to retire as its executive vice president after 45 years with the company, died Sunday, June 11, of cancer in his Lake Forest home. An intensely loyal man, Mr. Dancer long ago took in Stone’s personal philosophy of maintaining a positive mental attitude, trained himself to adhere to the doctrine and became one of its principal proponents within Combined Insurance. Some 30 years ago, he wrote a speech for the company’s sales team in which he said the mark of their company was a willingness to help others learn and grow, to be supportive and encouraging and to do the right thing because that was the right thing to do. Stone later remarked that Mr. Dancer lived his life according to the outline of that speech, said Linda Rupp, Stone’s chief of staff and a longtime friend of Mr. Dancer’s. “He was not just another exceptional businessman, he was the exceptional businessman,” said Wallace J. Buya, a retired vice president of Combined Insurance’s parent company, Aon Corp. “He was a dynamic person. He had a tremendous sense of the business.” Elegant in appearance, but approachable in nature, Mr. Dancer apparently never forgot that his first positions with the company were behind a lawn mower and in the mailroom. Colleagues said he seemed genuinely pleased when he could encourage others to personal successes, even as he achieved considerable notice in both sales and administration. He started with the company in 1943, and after a brief hiatus in the Army, rejoined the business in 1947 as a salesman. He advanced through a series of sales positions in Chicago until being appointed a vice president of the company in 1955, when he was transferred to Dallas. He was promoted and transferred to Richmond, Va., in 1961; made executive vice president of a subsidiary insurance firm in Boston in 1964; and returned to Chicago as executive vice president in 1974. He retired in 1988. His hobbies were golfing and traveling, and friends and family said he made good efforts at both. Again out of loyalty, he always kept in regular contact with former colleagues, even more than a decade after his retirement. He is survived by his wife, Loretta; a daughter, Diane; two sons, Douglas and Don; a sister, Anne Palmquist; a brother, Ernest; a grandson; and a granddaughter. A funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday in the Drake & Son Funeral Home, 5303 N. Western Ave., Chicago.
