Danny Dean McLean

McLean died Nov. 25 of heart and kidney failure, surrounded by family at his home in Naples, Fla., at the age of 86.

McLean, the only child of Geraldine and Robert L. McLean, grew up in Cape Girardeau, Mo. At Central High School, he played football and briefly played the tuba in the marching band. He worked at Sunny Hill Dairy and Montgomery Ward before enrolling at Southeast Missouri (SEMO) State University.

His college education was interrupted when his Naval Reserve unit, in which he served from 1950 to 1953, was called into active duty. On his return, he completed work on his SEMO business degree.

In 1955, he married Denise Louise Hahn of Scott City, Mo., and moved to St. Louis for a job as an underwriter with Safeco Insurance — the company to which he’d devote his entire professional career.

As Dan was promoted within the company, he and his growing family moved across the country to St. Louis, Wichita, Kan., Chicago, and New Jersey — making multiple stops in some cities — before finally landing at the company’s Seattle headquarters in 1980.

In 1992, McLean assumed leadership of Safeco Property & Casualty, the company’s biggest division.

Through the years, McLean traveled extensively and developed close relationships with many of Safeco’s independent agents. His position allowed him and Denise to entertain agents at company conventions around the globe — in Hawaii, Australia, China, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic, among others.

Along the way, McLean chaired the Insurance Information Institute, whose mission is to improve public understanding of insurance; and the Insurance Institute for Property Loss Reduction. He also served as a director of the National Association of Insurance Women Education Foundation.

In Seattle, McLean was an engaged community leader, serving as a trustee of the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center; a director of the University of Washington Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute; and a director of Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre.

After Dan’s retirement from Safeco in 1997, the couple returned to the Chicago area before moving to Naples, Fla., where he indulged his lifelong interests in golf and bridge. A master of the grill and in the kitchen, his homemade yeast rolls are the stuff of family legend.

In retirement, McLean continued to rack up honors. In 1999, the Donald L. Harrison College of Business at his alma mater, SEMO, named him to the roster of its Alumni Merit Awards.

Besides his wife, Dan McLean is survived by his children — Cynthia McLean (Michael Peck), Belize; Robert McLean (Laura), Aurora, Ill.; and Pamela McLean Meyerson (Charles), of Oak Park, Ill. — by grandchildren Daniel McLean, Jennifer Kochanski, Paul Naughton, Elise Naughton, Ben Meyerson, Joel Meyerson and David Meyerson; and by four great-grandchildren.

Funeral services will be held at St. John the Evangelist Church in Naples at 11 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 29. The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, memorial gifts be made to Avow Hospice, 1095 Whippoorwill Lane, Naples, Fla. 34105; or at avowcares.org.