A Life Well Lived: Celebrating Dean W. Berry, Jr.
1941-2026
Some people build companies. Others have the rare ability to build people at the same time.
For more than five decades, Dean W. Berry Jr. did both.
Since founding Memphis Communications Corporation in 1972, Dean watched an idea grow into a company that has served thousands of customers, supported generations of employees, and reached far beyond Memphis. Yet anyone who truly knew Dean understands that his greatest accomplishment was never something that could be measured on a balance sheet.
It is measured in people.
It is in the family he raised, the employees he mentored, the leaders he challenged, the Lord he served, and the people who were given an opportunity and discovered they were capable of more than they knew. It is in the stories former and current employees still tell, the lessons they carried into their own lives, and the unmistakable “Deanisms” that have become part of the language of MCC.
Joe Sankey, an MCC Security Sales Consultant, perhaps described Dean’s influence most simply: “He walked the walk.” Joe never saw Dean ask someone to do something he was not willing to do himself – and usually had already done himself. “If I live a life where that can be said of me,” Joe says, “then I will consider myself a success.”
As we celebrate Dean, that may be as fitting a place as any to begin.
An Entrepreneur Long Before MCC
Dean’s story as a businessman began well before Memphis Communications Corporation. At Bell & Howell, he became the youngest salesman in company history and later the youngest sales manager, eventually leading the Chicago branch to national sales records and moving into executive leadership.
His ability to sell was part of it, but those who worked with Dean remember that selling, in his mind, was never simply about knowing a product. It was about understanding people, communicating clearly, putting in the work and asking for the opportunity.
At the same time, he was building a family and developing convictions about faith, responsibility, perseverance and leadership that would shape everything that came afterward.
In 1972, Dean moved his family to Memphis and took the risk of starting a business of his own. There were no guarantees, only an opportunity, a willingness to work for it and Dean’s deeply rooted belief that very little worth having comes without effort. That decision became Memphis Communications Corporation.
More than fifty years later, the products and industry are different and the company is much larger. The principles behind it are remarkably familiar.
Dean Gave Me an Opportunity
For many people who have worked at MCC, the story of the company is inseparable from their own story.
Tim Barlow, now Vice President and General Manager of MCC’s Jackson operation, met Dean during his 1993 interview. Tim had dyed his hair the night before, aiming for jet black and landing, as he remembers it, “closer to an Elvis Presley dark blue.” Dean spotted it almost immediately. They laughed about it, and Tim got the job anyway.
What happened afterward mattered more. Dean continually pushed Tim to improve and rarely passed him in the hallway without asking whether he had ten demonstrations lined up for the week. He repeatedly told Tim he was a great field trainer. “I think he told me that before I actually was a great field trainer,” Tim says. Dean sometimes saw what people could become before they saw it themselves. “Dean gave me an opportunity,” Tim says. “I seized it and it changed my life and I am forever grateful.”
Bryan Britt, Regional Mailing Sales Manager, had less time with Dean before Dean retired, but the impact was similar. One lesson stayed with him: if you see enough people and demonstrate your product or solution, eventually somebody will buy from you because they like you or because they hate their current provider. It was Dean’s sales philosophy in miniature: know what you are doing, get in front of people, show them, build the relationship and do the work.
He Noticed People
Dean’s ability to recognize potential also showed up in quieter ways.
Tammy Beard, MCC’s Senior Purchasing Coordinator, first came to MCC in 1994 as a receptionist, through a temp agency. Before her three-month assignment was over, Dean came to her personally to say she was doing a great job. Customers had told him they could hear her smile over the phone. Tammy never forgot that the owner of the company had noticed.
After leaving MCC for eight years, Tammy returned in 2007 and found that Dean still remembered the day she had first been hired. That did not mean she never found him intimidating. She still laughs about walking purchase orders into his office for his signature and thinking of him as “a big bad wolf.” “Got to love Dean,” she says.
Joseph Kirk, Regional AV Sales Manager, remembers the same mix of high expectations and warmth. Dean might ask how many demonstrations he had done, correct what he should have said in a sales conversation, or remind him that “if people can’t prospect, they can’t succeed.” But he also told Joseph, “I’m proud of you, old man,” and answered his calls with, “Joseph Kirk fan club, this is the president speaking.”
Dean’s grandson and Document Solutions Regional Sales Manager, Brian Berry, remembers the familiar hallway question, “How many demos today?” If the answer was not two, Brian jokes, then he “must be independently wealthy.” With Dean, there was usually a lesson inside the joke.
The Details Mattered
Dean’s standards did not disappear as he approached the later years of his career. Sharon Wigg, now MCC’s CFO, got to know him while working in Accounts Payable, when he still approved invoices, reviewed check runs and made sure the checks matched the supporting documentation.
More importantly, he explained why. “He took time teaching me some important business principles and explaining the ‘why’ behind many of the very smart processes,” Sharon remembers. To Dean, a good process was not busywork. It existed for a reason, and understanding that reason mattered.
Sharon also saw his lighter side: the pristine suit and tie, the extremely loud letter opener he seemed suspiciously happy to use around lunchtime, and a running joke about the “never-ending” FedEx invoice whenever he spotted her working on it. “He seemed to genuinely care about me and my family,” she says. Dean took the work seriously. He did not always take himself quite so seriously.
You Can't Coast Uphill
Dean’s philosophy toward work and life may be best summarized by one of his most familiar sayings:
“You can’t coast uphill.”
Dean never believed growth should be comfortable. Whether the subject was selling, leadership, business, faith or life itself, effort was part of the equation. His life included business setbacks, recessions, difficult decisions, health struggles and profound personal loss, including the deaths of his wife Sandy and his son Sean.
Scot Berry, Dean’s son and Co-Chairman of MCC, has spoken about having a “front-row seat” to the way his father navigated hardship. Some of the greatest lessons came not from watching Dean succeed, but from watching him respond when circumstances were painful or beyond his control. Scot remembers his father living his faith and holding to the promise that “all things work together for good to those who love God.”
Dean had another saying for hard seasons: “Good times create bad habits.” He understood that comfort could create complacency, while difficult circumstances demanded attention, choices and perseverance. What looked like strength in the later years had been built over decades.
The Man Behind the Deanisms
Dean rarely had trouble getting his point across. Usually, he had a saying for it. His Deanisms were part sales training, part life philosophy, part motivational speech – and occasionally part verbal kick in the pants.
“It’s not about what you know. It’s about what you do with what you know.”
Brian Berry remembers the expectation behind that philosophy: become a subject-matter expert, understand the customer’s problem and know how to demonstrate the solution. Dean also warned that “if people can’t prospect, they can’t succeed,” and if a salesperson was still in the office during the “golden hours,” they might hear, “Gosh, you must be independently wealthy.”
Other Deanisms traveled well beyond sales:
“The world doesn’t need any more smart people that can’t communicate.”
“If it is to be, it is up to me.”
There was his warning not to become SNIOP – Susceptible to the Negative Influences Of Other People – and the advice to finish the week having “left it all on the field.”
And, naturally, there was YCDBSOYA: “You can’t do business sitting on your…” Well, you get the idea.
Perhaps no saying captures his philosophy better than this one:
“If you shoot for the top of the tree, you’ll hit the trunk. If you shoot at the trunk, you’ll hit the dirt.”
Dean believed in aiming high. He expected excellence from his company, his family, the people who worked with him and, importantly, from himself. Joe Sankey’s observation comes back to mind: Dean walked the walk.
Family With Standards Attached
MCC has always been a family business, but Dean never confused being family with being entitled to a position within it. The Berry children grew up around the company doing whatever needed to be done long before there were leadership titles.
As Dean once explained, “All of our family members have been raised in the business, and we’ve all benefited from the continuity of leadership.” But that did not mean special treatment. “We have never operated as a mom-and-pop business,” he said. “Family members do not call me Dad at work. They call me Dean.” Family mattered enormously, but so did standards. Work ethic, accountability, respect and leadership had to be earned.
Those values can be seen in the generations that followed him. Grandson and COO Josh Berry describes Dean as “the Abraham of the Berry family” and speaks of carrying his example forward, a responsibility he feels every day sitting in his grandfather’s office chair and recognizing the size of the shoes he hopes to fill.
Another grandson, Jonas Berry, Senior Account Executive for Security Sales, remembers Dean as a teacher in every part of life. In business, that meant learning how to properly execute the five steps to the sale; in life, the lessons often turned to Scripture and Godly advice. “He had an amazing way to recall scripture,” Jonas says, and was “a great example of what is possible with God blessing his extremely hard work.”
Dean’s family also grew beyond blood and business. Mark Irvan met Dean 27 years ago, when Dean began dating Mark’s mother-in-law, Mary, after Sandy’s death. Mark remembers a man who was always willing to offer business advice, share his faith and care deeply for Mary. “I’m so glad they met each other,” he says, “and that I got to be a part of his family here on earth.”
Faith at the Center
It would be impossible to understand Dean fully without understanding the role faith and his love for God’s Word played in his life. It was never a footnote; it shaped the way he approached family, hardship, relationships, business and leadership.
One passage Dean endeavored to apply daily was Psalm 1:1-3, with its image of a life rooted in God’s Word, bearing fruit through every season.
“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.
He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaves shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.”
Joseph Kirk remembers Dean’s business advice often ending in much larger advice: “Keep working hard and God will bless the efforts. Seek Him. Study His word. Teach your family through Bible study.”
Retired MCC employee Rita Floyd remembers conversations with Dean about “life, family, and a work ethic of honesty and integrity.” She knew him as “a man of high principles.” Doug Corbitt, a Document Solutions Sales Consultant for more than 23 years, describes Dean as a man of tremendous work ethic, a follower of Jesus Christ and an inspiration who “made his life count and all of us are the better for it.”
That conviction remained steady to the end. Mark says Dean knew without doubt where he would spend eternity and looked forward to his homegoing. His son Shane Berry recalls that even from his hospital bed, Dean greeted visitors with questions about their faith and whether they were living a life that would lead them to the Lord.
For those who shared Dean’s faith, there was sadness in saying goodbye, but there was also peace.
What a Legacy Really Looks Like
The word legacy can sound grand and abstract. In reality, it is usually something much more personal. As Josh puts it, “Inheritance is what you leave for someone, but legacy is what you leave in someone.”
Dean’s legacy is in the careers he helped launch, the people he challenged, the standards his family carries forward and the stories employees still tell years later. It is in a lesson remembered, a joke repeated, a process whose “why” still matters and a Deanism someone suddenly hears coming out of their own mouth.
It is telling a salesman he was a great trainer before the salesman was entirely convinced of it himself.
It is a salesman remembering both the correction—“Let me tell you what you should say instead”—and the affirmation: “I’m proud of you.”
It is employees learning not simply how a process works, but why it matters.
It is hearing “How many demos today?” often enough that the question becomes part of your own understanding of what moves a business forward.
It is the importance of always remembering the W. in Dean W. Berry Jr.
It is employees remembering conversations about integrity years later.
It is family carrying forward the standards they grew up with.
It is someone hearing one of Dean’s sayings for the thousandth time, perhaps rolling their eyes just a little—and discovering years later that they are now saying it to somebody else.
That is what legacy looks like. Not simply what Dean left behind, but what he left in people.
Shane Berry reflects on the rare blessing of having Dean not only as his father outside of work, but also as a colleague throughout his business career. He remains grateful that he and Scot have been able to continue stewarding the vision Dean began and applying the life and business principles he taught them.
The company Dean built speaks to his vision and determination. The family he loved speaks to what mattered most. The people who continue to tell his stories, repeat his lessons and carry pieces of his influence into their own lives may be the greatest testament of all.
So today, we celebrate Dean W. Berry Jr. – a husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, mentor, businessman, friend and man of faith. We celebrate the risks he took, the obstacles he overcame, the opportunities he created and the people he believed in.
We celebrate the high expectations and hallway questions, the demonstrations and war stories, the pristine suits and terrible letter-opener noise, the business lessons, the faith, the laughter and more than a few sayings that could only have come from Dean.
Most of all, we celebrate the Lord’s faithfulness and guiding hand in Dean’s life.
Thank you, Dean, for the opportunities and lessons, for the leadership and example, for seeing potential in people, for explaining the “why,” for noticing good work and for remembering people. Thank you for the family you built and the much larger family that grew around you. Thank you for living your faith openly and showing us, for more than fifty years, that what we do with what we know matters, that people matter, that effort matters and that aiming high is worth it.
Joe said that in everything he ever saw you do, you walked the walk. There may be no better way to explain why, after all these years, so many people are still trying to follow in your footsteps.
Thank you, Dean, for proving over the course of a remarkable life that you really can’t coast uphill.
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Dean W. Berry, Jr.
1941-2026