Remembering Rick Ahearn

By Clark S. Judge, managing director.

I served in a number of positions in the Reagan Administration before joining the President’s staff as a speechwriter. With few exceptions, all who served Mr. Reagan throughout the government deserved high marks and would go on to excel in their later (usually non-government) careers.

But among those who served the president directly I saw something additional – a quiet focus, a professionalism that was at once laid back and intense, a clarity of purpose that went beyond ambition and reached to an understated but well considered assessment of duty, purpose, and patriotism. As the phrase of the day had it, these were not show horses; they were work horses. Extraordinary work horses.

Rick Ahearn, who died on Tuesday November 14th, epitomized the Reagan inner-circle staff. For many years the President’s top advance man, he combined professional excellence with high character and the remarkable versatility required to field an almost constant barrage of surprise hits that no one saw coming. To these inevitable challenges and snafus that are part of the advance function, he brought an Irish wit much like the President’s, and a calm assurance that helped those who worked with him get through their tensest moments.

Since learning of Rick passing, I have found myself recalling him at Mr. Reagan’s funeral. I saw him walking here and there expertly overseeing the particulars of the most impressive and, for the statement it made to the world about the nation and its 40th chief executive, consequential occasion of its kind in our history. Cradling the agenda and other planning papers in his large arms, he was calm, assured, and in command. Everything was going to go perfectly. As it did. As it always did when Rick was running the show.