Pat Fallon, founder of Minneapolis-based ad agency Fallon, has died at the age of 70. Richard M. Coad, chief creative officer at MDB Communications, offered the following observations about this ad industry legend:

The term “Pioneer” is bandied about in a cavalier way these days, but one person who really was a pioneer was Pat Fallon. He played “little house on the prairie” in the advertising world when he started an agency in the hinterlands of Minnesota, at least that’s what the folks in the big city powerhouse agencies thought in the seventies when Fallon McElligott began. No one thought of Minneapolis as an advertising town, but look at it now.

The Fallon agency soon became a powerhouse of major brands doing some of the finest creative work in the world. The city of Minneapolis has become a thriving place for advertising agencies with many Fallon alumni starting their own, much the same as Hal Riney accomplished in San Francisco.

To be able to see what can be long before anyone else does and realize that dream is a rare talent, and one that Pat Fallon possessed. He was a brilliant business person.