Dan Irwin

Six months have passed since the death of Dan Wallace Irwin. He passed away peacefully at Good Samaritan Hospital on May 28, and a private family memorial service has been held. 

Dan Irwin was born June 13, 1940, and grew up in the West Texas oil hub of Midland. His father, Wallace W. Irwin, was a geologist and Permian Basin Petroleum Pioneer. His mother, Kathleen M. Irwin, was a homemaker and former schoolteacher. 

Dan attended Midland High School, where he played on the golf team. Summers were spent in the oilfields and at summer camp in Colorado. In 1958, he enrolled at Stanford University, where he met Barbara (Bobbie) Clark, a classmate from San Francisco. They married in 1963.

After earning Engineering and M.B.A. degrees at Stanford, Dan began a long and fulfilling career with FMC Corporation, a Fortune 500 company with businesses in machinery, defense, and chemicals. He and Bobbie began their life together in Houston, followed by moves to Southern California, France, back to Houston, and finally to Hinsdale, Illinois, near FMC’s Chicago headquarters.

The years in France gave their family an enduring appreciation of travel and history. During that time, Dan led a petroleum equipment business serving customers in Europe, the Middle East, and the USSR. In subsequent roles, he worked in businesses ranging from food ingredients to armored military vehicles. When he retired from FMC, he held corporate responsibility for manufacturing, technology, and information services. Despite his drive, Dan put family first and passed up opportunities that would have required relocating during his children’s high school years.

In retirement, Dan served as a close counselor to the management of a global chemical company, volunteered in many capacities — often with Bobbie — and reengaged with the oil business. For Hinsdale United Methodist Church, he oversaw the project to construct a new sanctuary. When advances in shale drilling brought new life to the Permian Basin, he formed a company to manage oil and gas properties originally explored by his father, made productive again by horizontal drilling.

Though he lived in Illinois for 45 years and even switched his football allegiance from the Cowboys to the Bears, the West never left him — he liked big skies and long drives; he lived with understatement and self-reliance.

Dan loved being a father and, later, a grandfather. As grandfather to Jack and Charlie Wood and Henry and Lucy Irwin, few things brought Dan more joy than cheering at their games and performances, hearing about what they were learning, and exploring the world, the country, and the city of Chicago together.

Dan is survived by his wife, Bobbie Irwin; son David Irwin (Kim); daughter Katie Irwin Wood; grandchildren Henry and Lucy Irwin and Jack and Charlie Wood; and sister Kathy Schuster.

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