One Hundred and Five Years of Charm, Grit, and Perfect Putts

When I moved to Santa Barbara nine years ago, I began playing golf at Santa Barbara Muni with the Cosmopolitan Club three days a week. One of the first and friendliest players I met was Stan Clothier, who was much older than my usual foursomes.

Stan was an excellent golfer, playing from the front tees and usually shooting his age, 96. He was fun to be around, very witty, and a great teaser. “You can’t possibly make that putt, Jim,” he’d say. “Putt it here,” which was obviously the wrong spot. He and partner Ron Singer won a tournament that spring that included 24 players. In January, he got a hole-in-one on the second hole, making it his eighth to date.

Stan turned 105 on April 8, and stopped playing golf about two years ago, but he was still alert and witty when I saw him a week ago, as unforgettable as always.

Stan was born on April 8, 1921, and raised in a lakeside Montana log cabin with dirt floors and no plumbing or electricity. His father and mother had come across America in a covered wagon in the early 1900s to homestead and farm. Stan was the second oldest of seven kids.

He attended classes in a one-room schoolhouse and says he walked miles through ice and snow to get there. He learned how to hunt and fish to help put food on the table. He graduated from high school in 1939, but because of the Great Depression, there were no jobs, so he went back to high school for another year to take advanced science classes.

When World War II broke out, Stan joined the Navy in 1940. Jobs were difficult to find in Montana at that time, so the military provided many opportunities. He studied radar and radio and was involved in remote-controlled bombers. Later, he went to flight school, but the war ended right before he got his pilot’s license. Stan joked, “Japan surrendered when they heard I would be getting my license.”

His war experience instilled a confidence that would motivate a very successful business and life. After the war, Stan went to the University of Minnesota on the GI Bill, and he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering.

There, he met Lucille Hansen, a beautiful receptionist. Stan’s charm quickly won her over, and they would be married for 64 years. He had three children: Bill Clothier, who just died in February, Ann Clothier, and Joanie Saint-Denis, who lives in Santa Barbara.

In his early years in Minnesota, in the ’50s and ’60s, Stan traveled long distances as a salesman of electrical components (phones and radios) to rural areas. He would bring his golf clubs and invite his buyers out to play golf. With his winning personality, instead of spending 30 minutes with them, they would spend four hours together. His son, Bill, commented, “He always makes friends wherever he goes.”

Five years ago, Stan would Uber out to dinner by himself. He would sit at the bar and chat with the other patrons. Often, his new acquaintances were so charmed by him that they would end up buying him dinner.

One time early in his career, while playing in a business tournament, Stan got a hole-in-one, which meant buying drinks for the whole group. Although he couldn’t afford the tab, he bought the drinks anyway. From then on, all players remembered Stan, the guy who bought drinks, and sales with his new company, The Stan Clothier Co., soared.

In the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, Stan branched out to TVs, semiconductors, and computers for rural midwestern towns and families. He would later buy a building for his new company, DATA LINK, which provided software, hardware, and services for companies nationally. Around 1985, when Stan was 64, he sold his company for millions. Today, it is worth more than $250 million. Bill would say that Stan made millionaires out of more than a dozen of his ex-employees, as he often financed their startup businesses.

Over his lifetime, Stan built numerous homes, belonged to many different golf clubs, and used his 27-foot motor home for family trips and Minnesota Vikings games. Stan would retire in 1985, 1995, and 2000. His daughter Joanie said, “Dad [has] always [been] a stand-up guy. His handshake [is] his word, and he [has] a very high moral compass.”

Stan is a true gentleman, and the world is a much, much better place because of him.