David Field Oliver (courtesy Oliver family)
The lawyer and civic leader embodied grace, ethics, public service, friendship and kindness through his life
“He had a great voice. He could really sing.”
That’s one of the little things Allan Stark remembers about his longtime friend, David Oliver. The two met as first graders at Bryant School and went on to graduate from Pembroke Country Day School (now Pembroke Hill) in 1970.
Along the way, Oliver served as student body president, and fittingly, snagged the lead role in the school’s production of “Carnival.”
“David wasn’t an athlete,” Stark says. “But he was the best teammate in the world. He went to all our football and basketball games. He had a wide range of friends.”
It was also at Pembroke that Oliver first encountered Mary Elizabeth Gresham – the woman who became his wife and shared a lifetime of adventures on horseback and ski slopes.
After graduation, Oliver headed to Haverford College, then to Boston University to earn a law degree. His professional path was never really in doubt, as his obituary explained nicely:
“With a U.S. federal judge — John W. Oliver, for a father, and a top trial lawyer — Lyman Field, for an uncle, it was inevitable that dedication to the law was in his blood.”
The young attorney returned to town with a focus on commercial securities, product liability and medical malpractice cases. Later, he handled complex litigation involving major corporations as a partner at Berkowitz Oliver.
But his high-profile legal career was only one chapter in a much richer story. Like his mother, Gertrude Field Oliver, had done before, David took a deep dive into Kansas City’s civic side and never looked back. Nor did he want to.
“If he committed to something, he was all the way in,” Stark confirms. The list of boards that David Oliver served on during his 73 years is long and impressive: William Jewell College, DeLaSalle Charter High School, Children’s Mercy Hospital, MRIGlobal, the Kansas City Repertory Theatre, UMKC, Teach For America, the Francis Family Foundation, the Kansas City Beacon, the Cross Foundation and the Murphy Charitable Fund were just some of them.
He also formed PLX CORP (Plan, Lead, Execute) to help companies diversify and strengthen their boards. He was a founding member of Aligned, a non-partisan, nonprofit coalition of business leaders aimed at improving education in Kansas and Missouri. And for decades he served as a Senior Fellow at the Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership.
That last one might sound like an honorary title, but Tom Vansaghi, the center’s managing director, says Oliver spoke “countless times” to students in his nonprofit classes at William Jewell and UMKC.
“He mentored them with extraordinary generosity, lifting their aspirations and helping them see what the leadership in what he called the ‘for purpose’ sector could look like.”
Outside the classroom, Vansaghi paints an equally passionate portrait of the man he called the “dean of the nonprofit community.”
“I would run into him at coffee shops and restaurants all over Kansas City,” Vansaghi said. “Each time, he would wave me over with that familiar spark in his eyes and say, ‘You have to meet this person.’ His introductions were never casual. He always brought such genuine enthusiasm that they turned into meaningful and often long-lasting connections.”
Stark agrees that his old friend was the epitome of a “connector,” a “right now kind of person” who knew the power of a smile.
Similar sentiments were echoed by classmates who gathered for a Pembroke reunion just weeks after Oliver died from kidney cancer.
“David was always ‘the source’ on what was right and wrong in Kansas City,” Rick Melcher wrote. “He never shied away from doing the right thing, however challenging it may have been.”
Armand Eisen called him “the most mature and gracious member of our class. He continued to embody grace, ethics, public service, friendship and kindness throughout his
entire life.”
“David was never about David,” Fred Kahn added. “If he invited you to coffee, it was to talk about you. David was selfless.”
All agreed that Oliver cared intensely about the city that nurtured him and rewarded his aspirations. In fact, his final advice to those who might mourn him was simply, “When you think of me, DO something for Kansas City.”
On Nov. 24, the Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership’s annual conference plans to bestow its first Oliver Award. It will, Vansaghi believes, honor its namesake’s “extraordinary legacy” and ensure that “his love for nonprofit leaders continues to inspire generations to come.”
