Evanston Chamber Names Richard (Dick) Peach Community Leadership Person of the Year
Born and raised in Evanston, Dick attended Evanston schools; College Hill Elementary, Skiles Junior High School and ETHS. Evanston has been his home for the past 73 years.
His work experience runs the gamut from being a printing press operator at Rand McNally & Co., managing a professional automobile racing team, service director for an automobile dealer to finally working in the collision repair industry. Dick has worked as the general manager of Dempster Auto Rebuilders, Inc., for the past 35 years. He has been involved with the Evanston business community over the years, he has twice been past president of the Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the City of Evanston-Minority, Women and Evanston Small Business Committee, part of the West End Business Association and one of the founders of the Evanston Small Business Association. He has worked to help younger members of our community by serving on the ETHS Automotive Advisory committee that helped create the ETHS new automotive lab, and is currently serving on the board and as a mentor for the WE Foundation.
Dick has been involved with the Evanston Community Foundation as a former member of the Leadership Evanston Steering Committee & Board. He has been a longtime member of the Rotary Club of Evanston serving twice as its President and then serving as an Assistant Governor for the regional Rotary District. He became concerned with the environment through his love of fishing and served on the District 65 Green Team, a Board member of Citizens Greener Evanston, and is currently serving as President of the Evanston Environmental Association. Dick has also been part of the Evanston Fourth of July Association serving as the Celebration Manager and a trustee helping put on Evanston’s outstanding Fourth of July celebration each year.
Any free time that he has you will probably find him in his boat, fishing. Dick spent nearly 20 years fishing professional bass and walleye tournaments, now it’s just for relaxation. His fishing led him to writing a regular award-winning column for the Evanston Roundtable, which he still does.