Dr. Richard Kelley ’51 was raised in Waikiki and spent his time after school helping the family’s small hotel business by hauling luggage, serving juice to guests and balancing accounts. A graduate of Punahou School, Stanford University and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Kelley returned to Hawai’i to practice medicine as a pathologist at the Queens Medical Center. But his career took a detour when he took a “two week vacation” from medicine to help his father open a new hotel in Waikiki. There he found his calling in the hospitality industry, never returned to medicine, and over the following decades grew the family hotel business into a global hospitality company, Outrigger Enterprises Group. Dr. Kelley was a visionary in the hospitality industry and a prolific writer who used his podium to improve Hawai‘i at every opportunity.

Dr. Kelley enjoyed serving on the Punahou Board of Trustees for seventeen years. As Chairman of the Board, he convinced then president, Rod McPhee, to introduce young students to the new world of personal computers. His personal gift allowed Punahou to purchase the first 12 Apple computers for students and implement teacher training work shops. Dr. Kelley’s continued leadership in this area, and further gifts, led to the 1984 opening of the school’s first computer training space, the Richard and Linda Kelley Computer Center in Bishop Hall, and later the Roy and Estelle L. Kelley Educational Technology Center in the Cooke Library.

In 2004 Dr. Kelley’s life-long support of Punahou School was recognized when he received the “O in Life” Award. This award filled him with great pride as Punahou School was tremendously important throughout his life, as a student, as a Trustee, as a father, grandfather and great grandfather of many Punahou Students.

He is remembered not only for his leadership and accomplishments in the community, but for his warm personality, intelligence and enthusiasm for tackling problems – no matter the size. Richard was predeceased by his younger sister Patricia Kelley ’55. His wife Linda V. Kelley, sister Jean Rolles ‘54, seven children, 15 grandchildren and 12 grandchildren celebrate his legacy through the establishment of this fund.