He and his father sat on the second floor of the restaurant, overlooking the tennis courts and workout facilities beneath them. Initially, Dini thought it was just a typical lunch with Dad. But that’s when Richard Dini sat him down. I know it’s been a hard time for you, but what you are doing in school is unacceptable. You either get your act in gear, or you’re out of school. Dini couldn’t believe what his dad was saying — how could he come down on me like that? Doesn’t he know my best friend still hasn’t woken up? But in hindsight, Dini knew his dad was absolutely right. “[My dad] challenged me in a time when I needed to be challenged,” Dini said. “. . . because I was just self-loathing.” So, after he graduated from SMU, he started feeling the same confusion as he had before — what do I do with the rest of my life now? Dini thought about becoming a lawyer, because that was “something to do,” but it was just a default. In reality, he didn’t have a clue on what he wanted to do. But again, his dad helped show him the way. And according to Richard, the path was simply to go to work. “You need to get a job while you are thinking… go work at a restaurant,” his dad told him. So he did. Dini began waiting tables at the original Pappadeaux restaurant on Westheimer Road in Houston, paying homage to his
Family time is quality time in the Dini household. Gathered around the fireplace in the headmaster’s residence, (clockwise) daughters Caroline and Claudia, son Thomas, David Dini, wife Nancy and daughter Megan (with back to camera), take a break during the rush of the Christmas holidays.
Since the boating accident, Dini wasn’t working. In fact, he wasn’t doing much of anything. He started to gain weight, stopped studying. He even deactivated from his fraternity, Phi Delta, soon after joining. He became self-destructive, depressed. “My life didn’t really move on,” Dini said. “My priorities started changing too. I started seeing the world in a very different way.” But then, unexpectedly, his dad snapped him back to reality, meeting downtown at the Metropolitan Club to discuss Dini’s life. Dini remembers the lunch like it was yesterday.
family’s history of owning seafood restaurants —Dini’s grandfather owned Dini’s Sea Grill for 64 years. he restaurant business has always been important to the Dini family. But after eight months at Pappadeaux, Dini realized there might be other challenges to tackle. “My dad certainly instilled in me from an early age that you should really focus on serving other people, and that should be first and foremost in your mind at all times,” Dini said. “And working in a restaurant, you really get that. You see that, really in living color.” So, once again, Dini’s dad offered inspiration. Dini had seen his father act as a servant leader throughout his life. For years, Richard Dini had worked in the development office at Rice University, and years later, he went on his own, forming Dini Partners — a company which raised funds for nonprofit organizations like schools, museums and hospitals. And as a result of his dad, Dini started to become service-minded too. He fell into a career in education development, just like his dad. Dini started to look like a new man. … At the age of 27, Dini called Denver, CO home. Just two years earlier, he married his wife, Nancy, and moved to help run a fundraising campaign at Graland Country Day School near Denver, where he was the Director of Development. But Dini’s work in educational development actually started two years earlier when he worked alongside John Cooper, founder of fellow SPC institution John Cooper School and the Headmaster at Kinkaid for 35 years. “I learned a great deal from him,” Dini said. “That was a real inspiring time. We worked to kind of put in place some foundational
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elements [for the school].” When he worked at Graland, Dini was in the middle of an $8 million fundraising campaign when he — totally unexpected — received a call from a school in Texas. “Our search fell through…,” St. Mark’s consultant Linc Eldredge said. St. Mark’s was looking for a new head of Development and Alumni Relations, and former Headmaster Arnie Holtberg was reaching out to Dini through Eldredge. After agreeing to consider the job, Dini met Eldredge in a busy Colorado airport’s Admirals Club. They sat down to talk, and the next words Dini heard Eldredge say would change the trajectory of his life. “I think you need to come down and interview,” he said. … Upon arriving at 10600 Preston Road for the interview, Dini remembers eating lunch with Holtberg. Dini watched, fascinated, as he interacted personally with the Marksmen, calling each boy by his first name. By the end of his visit, Dini knew this was the kind of community he wanted to be a part of. So in 1994, he moved back to Texas and took the job. From the start, he knew there were high expectations for him. As a new headmaster, Holtberg had lofty goals — and he was counting on the relatively unknown 27-yearold to help get him there. Fortunately, Holtberg’s instinct was good: just seven years after moving to St. Mark’s, the school completed a $52 million campaign for the school — over six times more than his last campaign in Colorado. “I certainly wouldn't be sitting here and don’t think I would’ve ever become a school head if it weren’t for that chain of events happening,” Dini said. CONTINUED, PAGE 20
‘MY DAD CERTAINLY INSTILLED IN ME FROM AN EARLY AGE THAT YOU SHOULD REALLY FOCUS ON SERVING OTHER PEOPLE’ PAGE 19