Jeffrey Warner Bartlett, 56, president of the Chemical Industry Council of Illinois and a vice president at the Northfield chemical firm Stepan Co., died of cancer Tuesday, March 21, in the Hospice of the North Shore in Skokie. Mr. Bartlett collected books and coins. His business often took him out of the country but to compensate, said his wife, Barbara, he packed as much living as possible into his time off. Sometimes he took his family on extended vacations to places he had discovered on business trips. “He always tried to make memories, to make things special,” his wife said. At Stepan, he learned to tell the difference between the amphoteric substances and aliphatic compounds with which the company worked, even as he expertly maneuvered through the vagaries of acquisitions and divestitures, contract law, and antitrust issues common to most businesses. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in history and philosophy from Beloit College in Wisconsin, Mr. Bartlett earned a juris doctorate from George Washington University in 1968. For the next decade, Mr. Bartlett worked at G.D. Searle & Co. in Skokie, where he was responsible for legal work involving the company’s overseas holdings. In 1978 and 1979, he handled similar matters for Helene Curtis Industries Inc., and in the following year served as general counsel for the Chicago Board of Trade. From 1980 until 1983, he was a partner in a private business law practice in Chicago, and joined Stepan Co. the following year. In 1995, he funded a scholarship endowment at Beloit College. In addition to his wife, Mr. Bartlett is survived by a daughter, Danielle Battle; and a son, Christopher Warner Bartlett. Mass was said Thursday in Winnetka.
