Budget adviser Andy McLauchlan, 51, had soul of a politician

When Andy McLauchlan ran for student-body president at the University of Washington in 1978, his fraternity brothers gave him flak for being a young Republican.

"Most of us had shoulder-length hair back in those days," recalled longtime friend Jon Hemingway. "Andy had a red Afro and a Fu Manchu mustache."

But those tresses concealed the soul of a politician — in the best sense.

"He was always service-oriented," Hemingway said. "Service to others."

Mr. McLauchlan, who was victorious in his UW campaign, followed his dream of public service to Washington, D.C., and Olympia. He served as a top staffer for former senator and Gov. Dan Evans, and helped control his home state's purse strings as director of the legislative committee that wrote Washington's budgets in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Mr. McLauchlan died Monday, a few months after being diagnosed with liver cancer. He was 51. In his final days at Swedish Medical Center, he struggled to fill out his absentee ballot for next week's election.

"It was very important for him to have a voice and to be sure other people had a voice," said his wife, Cheryl McLauchlan.

It was also important to Mr. McLauchlan to have fun, said Evans, who recruited the young Tacoma native to be his budget adviser in the U.S. Senate in the early 1980s. "Our staff was really a very close family," Evans said. "They worked hard, and they played hard."

With his effervescent personality, Mr. McLauchlan was the glue that held the group together — and was renowned for his practical jokes.

After leaving Evans' staff, Mr. McLauchlan took the job that made him one of the most powerful people in Washington state: chief of staff of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

For the first time in more than 30 years, an election had handed Republicans control of the state Senate, said former State. Sen. Dan McDonald, who was Mr. McLauchlan's boss. "We were in a staff-rebuilding mode, and Andy was just the kind of energetic young person we needed to bring it together."

As in the other Washington, Mr. McLauchlan put in grueling hours, fielding up to 75 calls a day from lobbyists, lawmakers and bureaucrats all seeking a piece of the $15 billion budget pie. Like Evans and his other political mentors, Mr. McLauchlan was a moderate Republican — fiscally conservative but socially liberal.

He was proud of his work to rein in spending on the state payroll and use the savings to cut class sizes in elementary schools, McDonald said.

Mr. McLauchlan ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 1988, and also failed in a 1990 bid for the state Senate.

Unsure of what to do next, he turned for advice to Hemingway, his old college pal and CEO of SSA Marine, the country's largest port and rail terminal operator.

Hemingway jokes that SSA hired Mr. McLauchlan against his advice.

A few years after he joined the Seattle office, Mr. McLauchlan met his wife-to-be on a blind date that started at brunch, included a Seahawks football game and a movie, and ended 12 hours later with dinner at Dick's Drive-In.

"I was hooked," Cheryl McLauchlan said.

The couple spent the first two years of their marriage in Panama, where Mr. McLauchlan helped launch SSA's first foreign-port facility. His humor and engaging style made Mr. McLauchlan a natural as the company followed that success with expansion around the globe, Hemingway said.

He eventually became executive vice president. "I've been with Andy just about everywhere in the world," Hemingway said.

But Mr. McLauchlan rarely lingered in those far-away places, particularly after the birth of his daughter, Amanda, now 10, and son Ian, now 8.

"He would travel to London, have a meeting in the airport and fly right back to make our son's basketball game or our daughter's dance recital," Cheryl McLauchlan said.

In addition to his wife and children, who live in Clyde Hill, Mr. McLauchlan is survived by his parents, H. Frederick McLauchlan and Rhoda LeCocq McLauchlan, of Bellevue; and two brothers, Henry "Rick" McLauchlan, of Port Orchard, and John "JD" McLauchlan, of Woodinville.

A service will be held at 11 a.m. Nov. 9 at St. Matthew's Church in Renton, 1700 Edmonds Ave. N.E. A reception will follow at the Don James Center at the University of Washington.

The family suggests donations to either the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund or Children's Hospital Foundation.

Sandi Doughton: 206-464-2491 or sdoughton@seattletimes.com