Tom McElligott

It must feel great to be elected to the Creative Hall of Fame. I guess the next best thing would be to work with one who was. I did, and it was. Great, I mean.

It was 1971 when a young Tom McElligott came in to see me with a book fresh out of Dayton’s department store. The ads were expected retail stuff with the exception of several ads for an Episcopalian summer camp.

The kid showed promise. I took a chance. It was a chance that paid off in spades.

 
I like to say I taught Tom everything he knows, but not everything I know. The truth, however, is that I learned more from him than he possibly could learn from me.

Tom McElligott was and is a driven man. A man with a passion for excellence. A man whose uncompromising dedication to his craft has brought him to the pinnacle of our business.

I saw in him a rare combination of insight, instinct and intelligence. Over the ten years at Bozell, he refined and honed his skills to the point where he was ready for his first entrepreneurial challenge.

 
In 1981, he left with Nancy Rice to join Pat Fallon in a venture which was to make advertising history and make Tom McElligott one of the most talked about and emulated writers in history.

In 1988, he left Fallon McElligott and one year later joined Chiat Day. But the incredible draw of entrepreneurship brought him back to Minneapolis and the beginning of a new agency, McElligott Wright Morrison White.

Where he continues to write history.