Daniel Joseph Mariscal ’60

Brother Mariscal was born on March 8, 1938 in Los Angeles, California. He attended public schools in the Los Angeles area and demonstrated leadership qualities in his early years. He served as president of his grammar school, junior high school, and high school. Dan entered the University of Arizona and pledged Fiji in the fall of 1956. He served the Fiji house as social chairman. His University involvement included membership in the student council and president of Traditions. Dan was the first “Yell King” to be elected by the student body.

Brother Mariscal graduated from the University of Arizona in 1960 with a B.S. in business. He also received a ROTC commission in the Air Force. Dan was stationed in Colorado Springs, Colorado and was in charge of developing manpower standards for the Air Defense Command. In 1962, Brother Mariscal married Jane, who he met at an exchange with the Theta’s.

Brother Mariscal was honorably discharged from the Air Force in 1963 and moved to Los Angeles where he went to work for North American Aviation as an industrial engineer. Dan says that he became disillusioned with big business and went to work for a small plumbing wholesale company, Hirsch Pipe and Supply, as an assistant bookkeeper. He moved into sales and after several years became a branch manager. This led to becoming the general manager. In 1978, the owner, Mr. Hirsch, decided to retire and Dan bought the company. At that time the company had three branches and 26 employees. Dan said the company had a manual bookkeeping system. He wanted to computerize, but a software program was not available for the plumbing wholesale industry. Undaunted by this roadblock, Dan went to work with a computer programmer. He developed a program for a complete plumbing business. This system became the forerunner for many of the current computer billing systems for the wholesale plumbing industry. After the system was put in place, Dan started to expand the sales of the company. As sales increased, so did the branches. He then developed an export business in the 1990’s. Hirsch Plumbing then became master distributors for several major lines of plumbing. A national sales office was then developed to sell other plumbing specialty items, which smaller companies did not want to stock. In 1996, Dan saw the benefits of the internet and became one of the first plumbing wholesalers to be on the internet. Today, Hirsch Plumbing has a major internet site called “Faucet Depot,” which serves all of the Unites States. There are also showrooms called “Fine Faucets.” Today, Hirsch Plumbing has 14 branches and 250 employees. Brother Mariscal’s community involvement includes being a member of the board of directors of the Balboa Island Improvement Association, and a cruise director for the Balboa Yacht Club. Dan’s son and son-in-law both work for the company. Dan and Jane, his wife of 44 years, have two children, Greg and Susan, and four grandchildren, Katie, Billy, Allisa, and Henry.

Brother Mariscal says this about Fiji: “When I joined Phi Gamma Delta, my parents had done a good job with me as far as values. Fiji continued promoting these values and also taught me discipline. We all had positive goals to pursue and were able to develop great friendships, which are intact and active to this day. Being a member of Phi Gamma Delta was, and remains to be, one of my great life experiences.