04/01/2017
It is with a deep sadness and a heavy heart that we mourn the passage of eParachute.com co-founder, and author of "What Color is Your Parachute?", Dick Bolles, who passed away yesterday at the age of 90.
Dick's work changed millions of lives the world over, and he will be sorely missed - by friends, family, loved ones, co-workers, colleagues, and all who were touched by his writing, wisdom, and insight.
-----
In loving memory of Richard N. Bolles
1927-2017
Richard Nelson Bolles, acclaimed author of What Color Is Your Parachute and other seminal books dealing with careers, education, work and play, passed peacefully from this world to the next on Friday, March 31st, surrounded by loving family and friends.
Born in Wisconsin, his family moved East with his father’s work for the Associated Press. Enlisting in the Navy late in World War II, he and his peers rejoiced that peace was declared shortly after their service started, certain that the threat of their presence had proven to be the final straw for the Axis and Japan. Halfway through a program at MIT for chemical engineering, he felt called to the ministry and transferred to Harvard, graduating with a degree in Physics. After attending General Theological Seminary in New York, he received a Masters Degree in New Testament Studies and was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1953.
Serving as rector for several churches in northern New Jersey, he was called to St. John’s Episcopal Church in Passaic at the time of the church’s centennial anniversary in 1959. Noted for his pioneering work with young people, his frank talks about teenage pressures, s*x and drugs established his distinctive and accessible ministry. After participating in the 1963 March on Washington led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he reached out to an all-black church literally on the other side of the tracks in Passaic. He and their pastor, the Rev. Avery Johnson, then led the integration of their churches, despite often-bitter and contentious reactions from some parishioners.
In 1966 after speaking at the College of Preachers in Washington, DC he was offered the position as Canon Pastor at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Moving with his family across the country that Spring, he served as the congregation’s primary pastoral contact. Caught in a political budgetary struggle, his position was eliminated in 1968 and he began work with United Ministries in Higher Education, overseeing campus ministers in the seven Western states, Alaska and Hawaii. In those socially fractious times a number of ministers were leaving their churches, most without any safety net or support. Out of that experience was born the concept of What Color Is Your Parachute, an imaginative extension and re-thinking of some career decision tools available at the time. Bolles’ gift for re-visioning how to apply those tools, along with the creation of new ones, set Parachute apart from other works. Self-publishing the book in 1970, selling it out of his tiny apartment in San Francisco, it caught the eye of the publisher of Ten Speed Press in Berkeley, known at the time for one book dealing with bicycle repair. The rest, as they say, is publishing history: it has been revised annually every year, has sold well over ten million copies, and is available in more than twenty-two languages. Among numerous awards, one he was especially proud of was the US Library of Congress’ designation of Parachute as one of ‘the twenty-five books that have shaped people’s lives.’
Bolles travelled the country, training thousands of job-seekers, career changers and industry professionals. His perspective on healthy living led to the writing of The Three Boxes of Life and How to Get Out of Them, an attempt to address the compartmentalization of education, work and play. His orientation toward matters of the spirit began to infuse his writing more and more over the years. Two quotes from his favorite theologian, Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) capture central elements of the perspective Dick Bolles brought to life and his work.
“Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks!” (Going Up To Jerusalem, 1886)
“Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully.” (Quoted in Primary Education, by Elizabeth Peabody, 1916)
When his family was young, he designed a camper top and various extensions of the family’s 1960 Plymouth station wagon, later discovering his grandfather had done exactly the same thing decades earlier. They travelled the country most summers, camping and reveling in our country’s natural beauty.
Dick was preceded in death by his parents Donald Bolles, Sr. and Francis Fifield Bolles, his brother Don Bolles, Jr. (famed Arizona investigative reporter murdered in 1976), his sister Ann Adcock Johnson and his son, Mark Emery Bolles. He is survived by his loving wife of more than twelve years Marci Bollesi (Mendoza) and his children by his first wife, Janet Price Bolles: Stephen Bolles (Julie Woodward), Gary A. Bolles (Heidi Kleinmaus) Sharon Bolles (Nando Raynolds). Additionally, he is survived by ten grandchildren: Shea Shawnson, Kimma Barry (Keith Barry), Melissa Bolles, Jenny Paredes (Edgar Paredes), Jasper Forrest Raynolds, Kyrianna Raynolds Bolles, Christian Bolles, Brian Bolles, Greg Bolles, and Emily Bolles, as well as two great-grandchildren: Maggie Barry and Olivia Paredes. Arrangements are pending.
