Richard R. Kelley, the former chairman of Outrigger Hotels and Resorts, died last week at age 88.
The eldest child of company founders Roy and Estelle Kelley, Richard Kelley grew up working in his parents’ hotels in a range of roles. He graduated both from Stanford University and Harvard Medical School before working as a pathologist at The Queen’s Hospital.
As his parents moved toward retirement, Kelley shifted career tracks, helping them open the Outrigger Waikiki in 1967 and joining the business full-time in 1970. He served as Outrigger’s president until 1988, CEO until 1993 and chairman of the board until 2011. He was chairman emeritus until the company was sold to KSL Capital Partners in 2016.
Hawaiian Tourism
Under his direction, Outrigger underwrote a series of four studies from 1996 to 1999 by the London-headquartered World Travel & Tourism Council that detailed the visitor industry’s impact on Hawaii’s economy. In 1998, he supported the Governor’s Economic Development Task Force.
Kelley chaired the Hawaii Visitors Bureau and Hawaii Business Roundtable, and served on the WTTC executive committee and the advisory board to the Congressional Travel and Tourism Caucus.
For his work to develop a convention center in Waikiki—which opened in 1994 after 15 years of his efforts—the Sales & Marketing Executives of Honolulu honored Richard as Salesperson of the Year and “Father of the Convention Center.”
Kelley died in Denver, where he lived with his wife, Linda V. Kelley, since 1993. He is survived by his wife, sister Jean Rolles, seven children, 15 grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren.