By CLAYTON PARK

Like many small business owners, Jim Daly is no stranger to adversity.

As president of Daly's Inc., a family-run company that operates Daly's Home Decorating Centers both in Seattle and in Bellevue, Daly has put up with more than his share of rude customers, late payers, building fires, and, on more than one occasion, cars accidentally driven into his storefront windows.

There were also what Daly calls the "red ink" years of 1991 to 1993, when his decision to expand by opening a third store in Redmond proved ill-fated, as it immediately was followed by the Gulf War, a recession in the local economy, the loss of one of his key paint suppliers, and news that his bank, which had been acquired by a bigger bank, was dropping his business's account.

Then came the invasion of the big-box "category killers," such as Home Depot and Eagle Hardware, in the mid-'90s, which resulted in the closing of a number of local independents.

Daly managed to survive it all, steering his company back into the black, thanks to sound business decisions such as pulling the plug on the Redmond store and focusing on providing customer service and top-of-the-line products, as opposed to playing the price war game.

Through it all, he has managed to retain a positive outlook - a remarkable feat considering that since 1993 he has been battling cancer.

Daly's success extends far beyond his business.

Over the years, he has been a pillar of the community, actively involved in the Fremont Chamber of Commerce and the University Sunrise Rotary Club, to list just a couple of groups he has been a big part of. He also established an industry trade group called the Puget Sound Decorating Association in 1986.

Whenever there's been a worthy cause, you could pretty much count on Daly to lend a hand - and quite often a joke.

Kirby Lindsay, owner of Ladybug Books in Fremont, credits Daly as her "mentor." "He's always been there for people," she said. "He kept the chamber going by doing the little stuff like the paperwork and the newsletter, while others did all the fun stuff."

Kirk Jolley, a Fremont contractor, describes Daly as "a man of good humor," who's always ready with a joke. He fondly recalls the time when Daly gave him a bottle of his home-brewed rootbeer. It was labeled "Frog Pond Rootbeer."

One day, Jolley showed up to do some work for Daly only to learn the two were born on the same day: April 24. "There was a birthday cake for him, so I said, 'It's my birthday, too!'" From that year on, Daly always remembered to wish Jolley a happy birthday, too.

Charlotte Buchanan, owner of the GlamOrama store in Fremont, recently wrote Daly to express her admiration for him. "You are the most successful person I know and one of the lights of my life," she told Daly. "You have successfully navigated this life as a kind, loving, graceful, joyful, truthful and present man."

Fremont property owner Suzie Burke has known Daly since 1975, when the two served together on the Fremont Commercial Committee, which was part of the old North Central Seattle Chamber of Commerce.

"We'd sit there and say, 'Gosh, we should have a chamber for Fremont!'" Burke recalls. In 1982, they helped form the Fremont Chamber. Daly was elected as the chamber's founding president, although he didn't exactly campaign for the post.

By his own admission, Daly says he is notorious for his tardiness in attending meetings. It just so happened that he was also late in showing up for the chamber's first meeting as well. That's why, when he arrived, he had no idea that the topic at hand was deciding who should be president. While everyone else in the room had said "no" when asked would they be interested in serving, Daly's reply was "What?"

That was good enough to get him elected.

The important point is that Daly DIDN'T say no. In fact, he went on to serve as chamber president for four terms.

Burke remembers one time when Daly was so late, he missed the entire event. "It was the first year of the Fremont Fun Run and Jim and I had agreed to run as representatives of the Fremont Chamber," Burke recalls. "The race was going to start but there was no Jim Daly to be found. I waited until the last possible second and then I started running/walking. It was 92 degrees that day and nobody had put any water out ... I came down towards the finish line and my face was like fuchsia. Jim Daly told me later that he missed the race because he had gotten stuck in traffic on 520 (the Evergreen Floating Bridge). I said 'Oh, sure!'

"So when we got to talking about what to do next year, I said: 'One thing's for sure! I'm not going to run the entire 5K!' So we came up with the idea for the chamber to do a Relay Race. It was Jim's idea to carry a briefcase (instead of a baton). So the next year, the entire Fremont Chamber of Commerce ran the race, including Jim!"

In recognition of his many accomplishments, both in business and in terms of community service, Jim Daly was honored as a winner of the Mayor's Small Business Award in 1986.

Daly recently reflected on his life, during an interview conducted at his home.

Jim Daly was born in Seattle and grew up in the Northgate area. His father was Walter Daly, a successful entrepreneur who moved his interior decorating/paint contracting business, the Walter J. Daly Company, from Texas to Seattle in the early '30s, by way of Los Angeles.

In 1947, the elder Daly moved his shop cross town, from Westlake Avenue to Fremont. Jim Daly recalls the Fremont site originally had two old houses and what was at one time a blacksmith shop. A gas station stood on the corner, where Daly's Home Decorating Center now stands, at Stone Way and N. 36th.

He also noted a little known fact: in 1959, when Daly's expanded by taking over the former gas station property, the "new building" it erected on the site was actually a recycled one - the old Foodland Grocery store building that previously stood on the corner of N. 45th and Wallingford. The structure was moved to make way for a Food Giant store that wound up serving as a local landmark for several decades.

Daly recalled, as a junior high school student, going down to the family's shop in Fremont after school to help with labeling. For a while, the family also had a factory in the Lake City area, he said.

In March 1951, Walter Daly died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 69. Jim, who turned 13 the next month, recalls that the company's assets were frozen because it had been a sole proprietorship. Daly's mom, Ethel, took over the business and solved that problem by forming an incorporation: Daly's Inc.

Jim Daly graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1956, and went on to attend the University of Washington, where he majored in chemistry and business. He dropped out to work full-time in the family business. "I was bright enough to see things that needed to be done," he explained.

At age 22, Daly was given the responsibility of opening of his family's Bellevue store in January 1961, two years before the completion of the Evergreen Floating Bridge.

After spending eight years as manager of the Bellevue store, Daly was named president of the company in 1969 following his mom's retirement. Daly's older cousin, Herb Paulson, was made vice president and the two became equal owners of the business.

Daly split his time between the Seattle and Bellevue stores for a while before hiring a manager to run the Bellevue store. This gave him more time to focus on running the business from the company's main office in Fremont.

Daly recalled some of the interesting customers he's dealt with over the years:

"I remember this guy, a Mercer Island architect, who wanted to sit in the middle of his room and on any given wall see the same color. It was an impossible call. The guy was neurotic as hell. I asked him, 'Well, what TIME of day? Do you want it at 10:02 in the morning or 2:15 in the afternoon?' ... I can remember him getting him in his car, slamming the door and driving away. I never saw him again. What can you do?"

Another encounter Daly recalled was with a woman customer who was so picky about the color of paint she wanted, she kept rejecting whatever his staff showed her. The problem was, she kept changing her mind as to what she wanted, so it essentially became a moving target.

"Finally, we made 6-7 copies of the same color," said Daly. "She'd come in and say, is the color ready? We'd respond, 'Gee, no, we're still working on it.' The truth of the matter: we'd made all 7 the day before. We would show her rendition C. 'Too red,' she'd say. So she'd come back the next day. 'Too green,' she'd say. Yet all 7 were the same color. Finally, towards the end of the week, she was tired of it and took it and was satisfied!"

Daly's has also had its share of rich and famous clients. He notes that "We provided many gallons of our SeaFin antique oil on (Microsoft Chairman) Bill Gates' mansion!" His daughter, Robin Daly, adds that Gates' wife, Melinda, was once spotted shopping at their Bellevue store, when she was pregnant with the couple's first child. She was checking out wallpaper patterns.

Other celebrity customers have included Martha Stewart, who sent a contractor to do her shopping, and former Sonic great Jack Sikma and then-Seahawk Brian Bosworth.

When asked to single out his proudest achievement, Jim Daly answered: "The fact that my family's involved in the business." In addition to Robin, 33, who oversees the company's retail operations, his son Ramsay, 29, works in sales at the Seattle store, while Herb Paulson's son Dale is manager of the company's paint factory and his other son, Brian, handles contractor sales at the Bellevue store.

Daly is also proud that he's been able to be "a part of the community ... If there was no community, there would be no Daly's," he notes.

Daly's involvement in community service led to meeting his future wife, Vicky, at a University Sunrise Rotary Club meeting in 1987. They established a friendship that blossomed into romance and got married in 1991.

In 1993, Daly discovered what was initially diagnosed as a kidney stone. After several tests, it was determined that he had a tumor. It was found to be cancerous, which prompted his doctors to remove his kidney as well. It was thought that the cancer was licked, but it reappeared in 1997. Daly underwent extensive chemotherapy treatment, but to no avail. The doctors then tried experimental chemotherapy treatment, but that too proved ineffective and was eventually halted.

Through all of this, Daly continued to work until about a month ago, when he finally had to give it up due to a decline in his energy level.

While cancer may be wearing down Jim Daly's body, it has not bested his spirit.

Robin recalls that her dad, an avid car buff and amateur racer who owns two Porsches (which he has dubbed "The Red Menace" and "The Silver Streak"), still had a few things to show the upstarts a few months ago.

"He hobbled out to the race track with his cane in front of all these testosterone-driven young guys and then blew them out on the track," she says.

When asked how he'd like to be remembered, Daly replied: "I hope my friendliness would be a part of it. I think I'm a friendly kind of guy."