Douglas Robert Shaw

April 6, 1938 – February 1, 2021

Douglas Robert Shaw was born April 6, 1938 in Detroit, Michigan, the only child born to the late Charles Shaw and Charlotte Thompson Shaw.  Douglas died on February 1, 2021, at Agape Care Home in Renton, WA where he had been living since December, 2019.   Despite progressing dementia, Doug continued to recognize people, walk with a walker, and carry on limited conversations, especially when it came to politics which was a lifelong passion!  Doug was able to remain fairly independent until the last few days of his life.  Doug was a proud man and it was fortunate that he could maintain much of his independence throughout his life.  If there is a “right time” to let go, Doug found that “sweet spot” as he would have hated not having the independence he had always valued so dearly.

Doug attended the Cranbrook Schools in Detroit and went on to graduate from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.  He was a member of Phi Kappa Delta fraternity and continued to stay in touch with some of his fraternity brothers throughout his life.  Doug loved business and found pleasure in a number of different kinds of challenging endeavors.  After college , Doug worked for General Mills.  He then became a marketing manager for a bank in Phoenix, Arizona.  He moved to Seattle, WA to take a similar position for People’s Bank.  Doug loved advertising and always pushed the envelope trying to make bank advertising more fun…one of his ads won an advertising award with the tagline, “People’s Bank Member FDIC and the Human Race.”   In the mid 1980’s, Doug led a Washington state campaign called “Team Washington” to help businesses that were major employers stay afloat.  He helped a young attorney buy a nearly bankrupt aluminum smelting company in Goldendale, WA.  The company ended up being very successful and Doug was hired to look for other business deals for the young attorney, a job that Doug loved.  He retired from that job in 2013 at the age of 75.  Doug was also the chairman of the board of Axio Research, a company doing statistical analysis of drug trials for pharmaceutical companies.  Axio was sold in 2019 and Doug was very proud of the success of the company.

Doug loved bicycling and working out religiously at the Washington Athletic Club.  He developed type 1 diabetes at age 26.  At the time his first wife, Judith Travis Shaw Tallman, was pregnant with their second child.  The physician in 1964 told Doug that he would not likely live to see his 2 sons graduate from high school.  This was a great motivator for Doug, who began reading everything about what caused death in people with diabetes.  He realized that such deaths were typically related to cardiovascular failure and began doing aerobic exercise before it was popular.  Even the last week of his life, Doug was working out on his exercise bike that he kept in his room at the family care home.

Doug is survived by his wife, Shirley Bonney, his sons, Travis Shaw (Hanh) and Matthew Shaw (Carolyn), their mother, his first wife, Judith Tallman, as well as his stepsons, Joshua Johnson and Zachary Johnson, and his grandchildren, Clare Shaw, Hayden Shaw, Jacob Gold, and Nathaniel Johnson.  There will be a celebration of Douglas’ life in summer, 2021 in Seattle, WA.  Donations can be made in Douglas’ memory to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.