Retired admirals are expected to take to the shores of exotic spots like Maui or New Zealand with a tall glass and a chaise lounge. But not Frank J. Allston. He enjoys world travel, all right, but he keeps up his long-running volunteer work for Naperville.
That work has included chairing Naperville’s sesquicentennial committee, working on the Riverwalk effort, which beautified walkways along the DuPage River, and serving with the Rotary Club.
What makes a person devote so much of his life to others? Allston said simply: “We live in a wonderful community, and there are many of us who want to give something back.”
It’s an effort that’s appreciated. “Frank sees the big picture, the investment in the future,” said Naperville Mayor George Pradel. “He’s tenacious and he gets excellent people to jump on the bandwagon with him. He has that military manner that commands respect, but he’s also very kind and concerned and really loves to work.”
Rear Adm. Allston, 65, was the Navy’s senior Ready Reservist when he retired from the U.S. Naval Reserve Supply Corps in 1985. Allston, a native of North Carolina, joined the Ready Reserve after his release from active duty in 1954. He commanded Naval Reserve units in New York and South Carolina before bringing his wife, Barbara, and their two sons to Naperville in 1969 when he took a management position with Bunker Ramo Corp. of Oak Brook, a manufacturing company.
Allston immediately became affiliated with the Naval Reserve at Lakeside Naval Armory in Chicago and in 1974 became commanding officer of the Ships Parts Control Center Unit at the Glenview Naval Air Station. He founded the Recruiting District Assistance Council program for the Navy Recruiting Command in Chicago and was the nation’s first RDAC chairman. The program unifies the efforts of individuals from many other organizations to support Navy recruiting.
A life member of the Navy League service organization and the U.S. Naval Institute, Allston served as chairman of Armed Forces Week in Chicago in 1978, the same year he was promoted to rear admiral. Along the way he has been awarded a number of service medals, including the Legion of Merit for outstanding performance as a flag officer.
In 1972, he left Bunker Ramo Corp. to join the corporate staff of IC Industries, Inc. in Chicago (now Whitman Corp., Rolling Meadows). In 1989, he retired from his last civilian job as vice president of corporate affairs of the Illinois Central Railroad, a subsidiary of ICI.
Allston didn’t wait for military or civilian retirement before becoming active in the community. As a member of Knox Presbyterian Church’s board of deacons in the ’70s, he was involved in sponsoring a Vietnamese family of nine, helping them get settled in a house, find jobs and learn English.
“The family is still in the area, and Barbara and I see some of them now and then. They’re doing well,” he said.
Allston’s own two sons have remained in the western suburbs, and there are now three grandchildren.
After a four-year stint on Naperville’s Transportation Advisory Board, whose input was instrumental in completing the north-south artery of Naper Boulevard, Allston served as general chairman of the Naperville Sesquicentennial Committee in 1981.
“I appointed him to that job,” said former Mayor Chester Rybicki. “It was all a grand celebration of the city’s 150th birthday, but nothing surpassed the Riverwalk. When (it was suggested that) we clean up the DuPage River and make it attractive for the occasion, I said let’s go with it. The resulting Riverwalk is a fitting inheritance, one of the most beautiful assets a city could have. I was real happy with the job Frank did. His leadership inspired other people in the community to be as enthusiastic as he was.”
“Our objective was to break even on the Riverwalk,” Allston said. “We ended up with $40,000 in excess, which went to build the Sesquicentennial Plaza on Eagle Street and to the library for the Naperville City History Room.”
For the last 15 years, Allston has served on the Riverwalk Commission, which was appointed by the Naperville City Council. His newest title is chairman of the ad hoc subcommittee for the Riverwalk Renaissance, a program for adding to the existing 2.8 miles of water-patterned brick walkways that line the DuPage River and provide access to covered bridges, plazas, fountains and scenic overlooks.
“So many people have moved here since the sesquicentennial, the city wants to make it possible for them to participate in an extension of the Riverwalk along Washington Street to Hillside Avenue,” Allston said. “We’re going to have to remove some weed trees, but they will all be replaced with desirable trees over a five-year period.”
Al Rubin, owner of Colonial Caterers, was Allston’s vice chairman on the sesquicentennial committee and is a fellow Rotary Club member.
“I’ve been enriched and privileged to know and work with Frank on various projects since 1974,” Rubin said. “His wife, Barbara, has been part of the relationship, a great stabilizer for when he rocked the boat. When Frank accepts an assignment, he is mission-minded. He takes soundings, formulates good plans and sets a course. Then it’s damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. He’s an all-round good volunteer for Naperville. You get on a committee with him, you know you’re gonna work.”
Work is second nature to Allston. At his 1985 Navy retirement ceremony, he was asked to write the bicentennial history of the U.S. Naval Supply Corps. from its beginnings in 1795. The 641-page book, “Ready For Sea,” was published last year by the Naval Institute Press.
While researching the Navy book, he began working on a second book about magnate William B. Johnson of IC Industries and his administration of the diversification of the Illinois Central Railroad. That book, called “Con-glom-er-ate” (Illumina Concepts, $24.95), was published in 1992.
He credits Barbara with being his best editor. “She was a history major and an analyst for the CIA,” he said. “I trust her judgment about whether a passage reads well.”
Allston has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science from the University of North Carolina and also went back to school for a master’s in business administration from the University of Chicago, which he completed in 1988 while still at the Illinois Central Railroad. “I got up at 4:30 a lot of mornings to study or write,” he said, “and was at it until 11 a lot of nights.”
Recently, he promised his wife he wouldn’t take on anything else for a while. “Then the Rotary Club lost their newsletter editor and wanted me to take the job,” he said. “I asked Barbara and she agreed I was the logical one to do it.”
Barbara Allston, who shares many of Frank’s interests, sums it up with a smile: “Being married to Frank is never dull.”
