John B. Dillon, 83, of Glenview, a longtime marketing executive for Sparkling Spring Mineral Water who was instrumental in building the business into a multimillion-dollar enterprise, died in Glenview on Tuesday, Jan. 14, of injuries received in a car crash.
Mr. Dillon was a native of British Columbia but spent much of his youth in southern California. During World War II, he served in the Philippines. He left the Army in 1948 as a staff sergeant.
After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, Mr. Dillon ran an insurance business. In 1950, he met Patricia McNally of Winnetka on a ski trip in Sun Valley, Idaho. The two were married that year and spent 52 years together until her death in December.
Until the mid-1960s, the couple lived in southern California, where Mr. Dillon joined a franchise of Mountain Valley Water. In 1966, he moved his family to Chicago and began working for a Mountain Valley franchise owned by his wife’s family.
He joined Sparkling Spring in 1980, a business founded in 1896 and based in Highland Park.
“He played a vital role in the growth and success of the company,” said Mark Hollingsworth, who worked under Mr. Dillon. “He really developed the advertising and marketing programs.”
As vice president of marketing, Mr. Dillon saw the company grow from a handful of workers to 250 employees before his retirement in 2001. Sales increased from $250,000 his first year to more than $30 million before the company was sold to Ice Mountain Spring Water in 2002, Hollingsworth said.
Mr. Dillon enjoyed hunting, fishing and skiing as well as working in his garden and yard.
He is survived by three sons, John Jr., Brian and Jeffrey; two daughters, Mary Isabel Holtrop and Elizabeth Ann Swift; and nine grandchildren.
Visitation will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. Sunday in Donnellan Family Services Funeral Home, 10045 Skokie Blvd., Skokie. Mass will be said at 10 a.m. Monday in St. Philip the Apostle Church, 1962 Old Willow Rd., Northfield.
