Jim Desautel, co-founder of the Spokane-based communications firm now known as DH, is being remembered as pioneer in integrating public relations strategies and promoting work-life balance.

Desautel, 75, died April 7, following struggles with chronic health issues.

He and Cher Desautel, his wife of 42 years, who together founded the agency originally named Desautel Communications & Marketing in 1996, were among recipients last year of the Journal’s Inland Northwest Business Icons awards.

Michelle Hege, the current president and CEO of DH, says the company continues to operate under values formulated by the Desautels.

Hege, who joined the agency as the Desautels’ first employee in 1997 and became a partner in 1999 when the company was rebranded as Desautel Hege Communications, says Jim Desautel was early to adopt the concept of bringing together multiple facets of communications to serve clients.

“Today, we call it integrated,” she says. “Integrated communications is pulling together disciplines of public relations, marketing, and advertising.”

Hege says he was a powerful mentor who was invested in the company’s employees.

“I often will tell employees today about Jim taking me to meetings when I was a young woman in my 20s,” she says. “Jim would always turn to me or the client and say, ‘Michelle is the expert on that.' Looking back on that, I understand what a powerful opportunity that was. Jim was sharing power with me.”

Hege says Desautel also was early to the concept of work-life balance. “He would always say work is important, but life is more important. He made time for friends and invested in many relationships in his life.”

She notes that he was a scratch golfer. “He was passionate about golf and mentored many of us in the game.”

Cher Desautel says her husband, an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, was born in Nespelem, Washington, on the reservation.

His early professional background was in television journalism.

“He was such a good storyteller in pictures and in words,” she says.

In what she describes as one of her husband’s proudest accomplishments, he wrote, produced, and narrated the film “The Price We Paid,” which was presented to Congress and influenced efforts to negotiate a settlement for mitigation of the Grand Coulee Dam, which flooded historical tribal land and cut off a vital fisheries when it was completed in 1942.

The settlement, reached in 1994, secured the tribe payment of $53 million and over $15 million annually from the Bonneville Power Administration.

Cher says the settlement became the template for further negotiations among other tribes.

“Jim was an influence in Indian Country,” she says. “DH does a lot of work with tribes because he had the understanding, respect, responsibility, and humility to tell their story through Native eyes.”

In addition to Native American tribes and casinos, early clients at the agency included Avista Corp., Washington Trust Bank, Itron Inc., several health care providers, and state and local public agencies.

DH gained national attention in 2001 when it won one of the public relations industry’s top awards, the Best of Show among Silver Anvil Award recipients, for the Washington state outreach campaign Healthy Kids Now!, which was designed to help the state’s uninsured children receive health care.

Jim phased into full retirement from the agency around 2010, and Cher retired about five years later. Hege and two other of the agency’s initial three hires are now among five owners of DH.

Cher says Jim always made himself available when budding entrepreneurs requested his advice.

“Even when he didn’t feel great and it was a struggle for him, I don’t ever remember him turning anyone down,” she says. “If they had sought him out and wanted to talk to him, he would want to share, and he was always humble about it.”

She says he lived every moment to the fullest—in work and play.

“Jim loved people, he respected people, and he expected a lot of them," she says. "He just had a vision for how good life can be, but you have to put a little bit of effort in. He didn’t have an easy life, but there weren’t any barriers that could keep him down. He was just a joyful person.”

Jim is an Eastern Washington University alum, and the couple has set up the James & Cheryl Desautel Endowment to support EWU students pursuing careers in communication with an emphasis on diversity, she says.

He enjoyed being a community volunteer, having served board positions on the EWU Foundation, the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, the Rypien Foundation, and the IRS Citizens Advisory Board. He also is the recipient of the Junior Achievement of Washington Hall of Fame Award and the EWU Entrepreneurship award.

He is survived by two daughters and three grandchildren.

Cher says an event to celebrate Jim’s life will be 3-5 p.m. Saturday, April 27, at the Ruby River Hotel Ballroom.