March 09--John Copeland spent his entire career in the meat processing business with Swift, later Esmark, and combined his industry experience with innovative approaches to take what became Swift Independent Packing Co. public in the early 1980s.
"John was an old-line traditional executive who found himself dealing with some complicated strategic competitive threats," said Doug Gray, who became president of the new company, which he said was also known as Swift Independent Corp. "And he had the resourcefulness and mental agility to address those difficult issues.
"We created a lot of shareholder value out of what was a moribund business," Gray said.
Copeland, 92, died of natural causes on Jan. 30 in Fort Myers, Fla., according to his son Victor. After retiring from Swift in 1986, the longtime Hinsdale resident and his wife, Lois, who died in 2013, divided their time between Hinsdale and Fort Myers until selling their Hinsdale home in 2009.
Copeland was born and grew up in Converse, La., the youngest of seven children. During the Depression, he helped his family by picking cotton, milking cows and chopping wood.
After two years at Louisiana State University, he was drafted for service in World War II. After he completed officer candidate school and was commissioned a lieutenant in the Army infantry, Copeland was stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. There he met Army nurse Lois Hansen.
Both were shipped to Europe, but they kept in touch with regular letters and occasional visits, when Copeland could commandeer a Jeep, and sometimes static-filled calls on Army field telephones.
As the war in Europe was winding down, Copeland proposed over one of those phones. His son said neither could hear the other clearly, so several telephone operators helped relay both the proposal and the acceptance. The two were married in Paris in September 1945.
They were stationed together in Berlin for several months before Lois Copeland returned to the States to prepare for the birth of their first child.
Copeland left the Army in 1946 and returned to LSU to complete his studies. After graduating in 1948, he and his family moved near his wife's hometown in Nebraska, settling across the river in Sioux City, Iowa, where he went to work for Swift and Co.
He went in person to apply for a job, hoping to use his college training in accounting, his son said. But his experience and personality led to a job in operations, initially as a meat grader.
He worked his way up at Swift through a number of jobs and locations before he was promoted to vice president in the company's headquarters in Chicago.
Along the way, Copeland was chairman of what was then the American Meat Institute, and also was chairman of the National Livestock and Meat Board, according to his son. He became president of Swift's fresh meat division in 1973, about the same time Swift formed the holding company Esmark.
Gray said Esmark was unwilling to put needed capital into the meat business, and the decision was made to separate that business from Esmark.
"We took it public in an (initial public offering)," Gray said, "but it was being divested from Esmark."
At the time, the business was working under what Gray said were "onerous" labor contracts and was far from successful. "We were a business that was losing tens of millions of dollars," Gray said.
The effort to take the company public paid off, according to Gray, who said the new company soon made the Fortune 200 list and created enough capital to "refresh the business and modernize it."
After retiring in 1986, Copeland and his wife traveled the world, his son said. Copeland was an avid fisherman, so his travel included regular fishing trips to Canada with family members.
In addition to his son, he is survived by another son, Wade; eight grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.
Another son, John Jr., died in 2012.
A memorial service was held in Florida.
Graydon Megan is a freelance reporter.
