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Chicago Tribune
DECEMBER 29, 1991 A family's wellspring Success bubbles up in East Dundee Author: Paula Lauer. Edition: FINAL EDITION Section: TEMPO NORTHWEST Page: 1 Index Terms: SUBURB WATER BUSINESS PROFILE STATISTIC Estimated printed pages: 6 Article Text: Long before there was Spring Hill Mall in Dundee Township, there was Spring Hill. Or more specifically, springs on a hill. The natural springs formed Spring Brook, a bubbling tributary that cascaded down a height of 40 feet, providing power for the town's first water- wheel-powered mill in 1837, Spring Mills. Back then, farming was a way of life in Dundee, and, according to ``Dundee Township, 1835-1985,'' a book published by the Dundee Township Historical Society, farmers from miles around brought their ox carts loaded with grain to the mill, while upstream, local farmers and travelers would stop to water their horses at the springs. Years later, Anthony D'Angelo, an Italian immigrant who had worked his way to an early retirement on the railroad, decided to tap into this natural wonder and founded D'Angelo Natural Spring Water in 1928, on the eve of the Great Depression. D'Angelo celebrated his grand opening by dropping hundreds of picture postcards all over town from an airplane. Three generations later, the small family business is still going strong, and, according to Gary McNeil, D'Angelo's grandson and general manager of the company, the water comes from the same sealed spring and operates out of the same plant located at the intersection of Illinois Highway 72 (Higgins Road) and 68 (Penny Road) in East Dundee. ``I'm still not sure how he made it,'' McNeil said laughing. ``This was the Depression. People couldn't afford to buy food, yet they managed to buy water. I think back then it was more of a status thing. There was a loyal following among the affluent. Today it's more consumer oriented as an alternative to tap water.'' McNeil was quick to add that D'Angelo had done well with his career on the railroad, and he also owned a successful dry goods store and restaurant that catered to the railroad crowd. ``He owned some rental property, too,'' McNeil said, ``so he had enough money to support himself and his family. ``My grandfather was only 36 when he retired,'' he said. ``He moved out here because he was tired of city life and he liked the Fox Valley, the rolling countryside, the bluffs and the (Fox) river. Bottling water was really an afterthought.'' Walking on a faint, winding path on the 15-acre property that used to be part of the old Spring Hill Road, McNeil pointed out what was once a favorite watering spot for farmers; to the right, beyond the trees, lies one of four manmade ponds. ``Long before we were here, this used to be a shortcut to the Dundee Township Cemetery East,'' he said. ``He designed this place for his own enjoyment,'' McNeil said of his grandfather. ``It looked sort of like a resort, but it was just a place for him to escape to. He enjoyed inviting friends and relatives out to visit, swim, picnic and walk the property.'' Isabelle D'Angelo Alfredson, D'Angelo's daughter and McNeil's mother, still lives on the property and remembers growing up surrounded by trees, wildlife and, of course, water. ``It was like a park to me,'' she said. ``It seems like my father was always working to make it beautiful. He kept at it constantly.'' D'Angelo died in 1956. His son Ray took over and ran the company for the next seven years until his death in 1963. Isabelle, who took over ownership when her brother died, said she likes to stay behind the scenes ``unless there's a really big decision. Then I tell them what I think.'' Her second husband, Carl, has been president of the company since the early 1960s and sees a bright future for D'Angelo Water. ``This is a good field to be in,'' Carl said, ``especially with people being so health-conscious now. We keep up with the latest trends, and we're unique because of our natural product and good service.'' ``They provide a service to the community,'' said Dave Smith, village administrator of East Dundee. ``They're kind of hidden and out of the way, but I think people who want their services know where they are. We use them here in the village hall.'' At 60-something, Isabelle and Carl agree that the business should remain a small family operation. ``I would like (the business) to remain in the family,'' Isabelle said. ``I believe this was the wish of my father. I felt that growing up.'' Isabelle said there are nieces, nephews and grandchildren who could inherit the business. They're all too young to be concerned with any aspect of the business yet, besides drinking the product. In addition to creating ponds and a park-like setting, D'Angelo built his own plant and connected it to his home, a white structure complete with window boxes and green shutters that looks as if it might have been plucked from the mountains of Pratola, Italy, D'Angelo's hometown. Flanking the building were several fountains and a bath house, which are no longer there. Forty-foot pine trees guarding the entrance to the wooded property came from D. Hill Nursery in West Dundee and were only six-inches tall when D'Angelo planted them. ``He built the building into the side of the hill so he could use gravity to move the water,'' McNeil explained. ``The water from the spring he tapped flows into a 1,500-gallon underground reservoir. From there it flows down into three stainless steel tanks in the plant.'' Once the tanks are filled, the water still has to have a place to go, so it bubbles up and out of the mouths of two concrete lion heads on either side of an ornate fountain that used to be the focal point of the property. Under the guidelines of the Alexandria, Va.-based International Bottled Water Association, spring water must be derived from an underground formation from which water flows naturally to the surface. It cannot be modified by blending with water from any other source or by the addition or deletion of dissolved solids or minerals except for ozone, which is added as a disinfectant. ``We don't process the water at all,'' McNeil said. ``It seeps through limestone bedrock, where it's naturally filtered and picks up natural minerals like calcium. We don't add anything to the water, and it never hits the open air.'' Besides spring water, there are other bottled water classifications. Natural water is bottled spring or well water and is not derived or treated from a municipal system or public water supply and is unmodified. Distilled or purified water is water produced by distillation, deionization (water is passed through resins that remove most of the dissolved minerals), reverse osmosis (water is forced under pressure through membranes that remove 90 percent of dissolved minerals) or other suitable processan Although D'Angelo water is pure and naturally filtered, as a quality- control measure, it's zapped with 18,500 volts from an ozone generator just before it's bottled. ``It's kind of like pasteurizing milk, only instead of heat, we use electricity,'' McNeil explained. ``If there was any bacteria present, which there isn't, it would be eliminated. (The process) sort of creates a mini thunderstorm in the tank. It make the plant smell like it does after a big rain.'' McNeil said spot tests are run every day, and results are meticulously logged by daily lot numbers. A state-certified lab conducts tests once a month, and a detailed analysis of the water is done twice a year. ``We're very strict about our logs,'' McNeil said. The plant bottles about 500 five-gallon bottles of water a day at a rate of two bottles every 20 seconds. McNeil said because their plant is only about 7,500 square feet, they don't have room to store a lot of water. ``We'll store bottles for two days at most,'' he said. With eight full-time employees, McNeil keeps busy overseeing day-to-day operations, sales activities and deliverymen who spend all day delivering to clients in the west and northwest suburbs from Aurora in the south to the state line in the north, as far east as Elk Grove Village and to the Marengo- Union area in the west. ``With a small staff, everyone pitches in and does whatever needs to be done,'' McNeil said. ``Sometimes I'll still go down and help bottle or wait on customers.'' Growing up around D'Angelo water, McNeil and his older sister Sylvia Masters, who is an administrative assistant for the company, spent summers and after-school hours bottling water when they were younger. ``If we wanted extra money, we would come down after school and help out,'' Sylvia said. ``I've pretty much done every job there is here,'' McNeil said. ``Everything from bottling and delivery to sales and customer service.'' McNeil said that when his grandfather started out, glass bottles were filled by hand using a rubber hose. Today, sterile bottles are automatically loaded into place and filled two at a time. A computer controls the volume. A small conveyor belt transports filled bottles to the automatic capper. Then bottles are manually loaded onto holding racks. When bottles are returned, an automatic bottle washer resembling a small car wash performs five stages of a wash and rinse cycle before the whole process starts over again. D'Angelo Water is as environmentally sound as you can get, and McNeil makes sure by shunning all chemicals, recycling bottles and using non- phosphate soaps in the bottle washer. ``I work around a good, natural product all day,'' McNeil said. ``It's made me very aware of the fact that everyone needs to pitch in to protect natural resources. I know how valuable it is, and once it's spoiled, it's gone forever. ``It's not a theory I've come up with myself. Other people are saying this, too. I think we're in an age where that's going to have to be a No. 1 priority.'' McNeil's other priority is keeping a small business small in a booming industry. According to Lisa Prats, vice president of the International Bottled Water Association, there are 475 water bottling plants in the United States. One in six Americans drinks bottled water (one out of every two in California), and approximately 1.8 billion gallons of domestic non-sparkling water were sold in 1990. Sales of bottled water increased 12-18 percent in the last decade and are expected to continue to increaseby 8-10 percent through the year 2000. But probably the most meaningful information to water bottlers is demographic; Prats said there really is no one specific market for bottled water, a fact that presents a challenge to companies trying to identify and advertise to their target market. ``The bottled water consumer runs the gamut from infants to the elderly,'' she said. ``There isn't a typical bottled-water consumer.' Caption: PHOTO (color): Water springs from lions' mouths. PHOTO (color): Gary McNeil manages D'Angelo Natural Spring Water in East Dundee. Photos by Hung Vu. PHOTOS 2 COPYRIGHT 1991, CHICAGO TRIBUNE Record Number: 12*29*6\91120006.346 |
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