Maintenance man could fix or create any machine

Daniel Corderman ~ 1927-2007

For 22 years Daniel "Dean" Corderman of Barrington supervised the maintenance team for the Grove Street Harris Bank in Barrington and its seven branch locations in Barrington, Hoffman Estates, South Barrington, Lake Barrington Shores and Vernon Hills.

But bank employees called on him to do more than make repairs and handle maintenance issues.

"Being handy didn't begin to describe Dean," says Steve Molino, executive vice president. "He could take a bucket of bolts and turn it into a working machine."

Mr. Corderman was so handy, in fact, that nobody could bear to see him retire. He worked at the bank until April.

On Friday, he passed away. The 24-year Barrington resident was 80.

"He was always active and just liked to do things," says his wife, Crystal.

Bank colleagues assumed Mr. Corderman gleaned his innovative know-how from his days farming near Sac City in western Iowa.

Mr. Corderman grew up on a farm in the region, where he later farmed his own land. He often returned to help his parents on their farm with their repairs.

He eventually left farming to work for Sauber Manufacturing in Virgil, Ill. It was about this time that he met his second wife, Crystal, a Barrington native, whom he married on Dec. 30, 1983.

Within a year, Mr. Corderman landed his job with the former First National Bank of Barrington, before it became Harris Bank and moved to its present location on Grove Street in downtown Barrington.

"He could size things up pretty quickly," says Joe Connelly of the commercial lending group. "There are a lot of moving parts in this building."

Bank employees fondly remember the many inventions Mr. Corderman came up with to make their jobs easier. One of them, a "Dialamatic," still sits in his garage, but they called on it every time they repaved the parking lot.

Instead of laying stencils on the blacktop, the machine, which consisted of two giant wheels that contained the stencils, efficiently painted the numbers or letters onto the parking lot surfaces.

"He came up with all these neat little devices that made our jobs easier and faster," Molino says.

Besides his wife, Mr. Corderman is survived by a son, Michael (Susan) of Aurelia, Iowa, and a daughter, Lori (Pat) Henricksen of Grand Junction, Colo., and seven grandchildren.

Funeral services for Mr. Corderman will take place at 11 a.m. today, at Davenport Family Funeral Home, 149 W. Main St. in Barrington.