John A. DeStefani peacefully passed away on Nov. 4, 2022 in Phoenix, AZ from complications of Alzheimer’s Disease. John was born Aug. 26, 1938 in Manhattan, NY, and spent his early years living in Brooklyn. As a young man, John enlisted in the Army Reserves, where he found his culinary calling, boiling either 40 eggs or 40 potatoes at a time for his fellow reservists on weekends.

John went on to college at St. John’s University, where he studied chemistry.

He worked for Sinclair and Valentine in Secaucus, NJ in the purchasing department for Vic Golden, who became a lifelong friend of his. When Vic became president of Shamrock Technologies in the late 1970s, Vic hired John to work in their sales department.

John had no sales experience but working with Vic in purchasing taught John a lot about who he liked to have calling on him and took the best attributes of those folks and made them his own.

Alan Kalmikoff, long time colleague and lifelong friend of John’s, had this to say…. “John was 100%, New York, Italian. He never cooked. His refrigerator always had a bottle of wine and a quart of ice cream in it and nothing else. He never met an Italian meal or drank a Negroni he didn’t like. John loved people and his customers all adored him for being ‘Just John’, a devout bachelor, who’d take his customers to Frank Sinatra concerts and bring his numerous girl friends as dates, so that they could have a great time too.”

John was asked to move to Chicago for Shamrock in the early 1980s and he flourished there. He also met the love of his life, at age 57 and married his wonderful wife Donna, who was from Chicago. She had four kids, so John became an instant stepdad, beloved by all and he was “papa” to eight grandchildren.

John and Donna retired to Phoenix, AZ several years ago, where most of her family resided.

John was involved in the printing ink industry for more 40 years and his customers all loved him because they always came first to him.

John DeStefani was a longstanding member of the Chicago Printing Ink Production Club and will be missed by all of those his life touched.