Meadows Funeral Home

     Dan Williams, 55, was promoted to Glory on November 5 2025 in Dallas, Texas. He was born on August 14, 1970 in Indianapolis to Bob and Rita (nee McMullen) Williams. Dan's birth Mom, Rita went to be with the Lord in 2002. Kay (Rotramel) became Dan's new Mom in 2004. He had a brother, Steve, who passed away in 1983 at age 14. In addition to Bob and Kay, Dan is survived by Kay's daughters, Amy (Marvin) Mason and Sara (Tony) Blair and their adult children, Connor (Erin) and Olivia Mason and Georgia and Jana Blair. He also is survived by many cousins and relatives, of special note is his cousin Keith, who has been like a brother. Many thanks to his Aunt Diane, who not only arranged for Dan's care-givers, but also served as another Mom to him. A most special person in Dan's life is Jackie Franklin who not only was a loving care-giver, but was with him every day since 2003. We cannot thank her enough for her care and dedication.
     Having lived most of his formative years in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago, Dan attended Grace Bible Church – Rolling Meadows and Shorewood Bible Church. Dan had a firm belief in God's grace and knew he was headed to Heaven.
     Dan had a progressive neuro-muscular disease, SMA (spinal muscular atrophy) from birth, as did his brother Steve, and was not expected to live but a few years. Both Dan and Steve attended summer MDA camp several years and met Jerry Lewis on a couple occasions. Amazingly they beat the odds and were fully integrated into regular classes throughout their school years. Steve graduated from Thomas Junior High with honors and Dan graduated from Palatine High in Palatine, IL, in 1988 with honors. Dan played in the school bands and for the wheelchair floor hockey team that competed with other Chicago area schools.
     Being raised primarily in Arlington Heights, IL, Dan lived in Indianapolis, Detroit and Kansas City at various times. Dan and Steve were the first junior high volunteers for the Arlington library where they taught children to use computers, which were being introduced in schools in the early 1980's. Having an interest in computers, that began when he and Steve bought their first computer, a Sinclair. This eventually led Dan to assemble his own computers. Dan also enjoyed building and racing competitively radio-controlled cars. He built and raced both electric and gas powered cars. He had a strong interest in a variety of sports. While in KC, Dan became a big Chiefs fan, being a season ticket holder for three years. He was an avid Chicago Blackhawks fan having been to many games and having met several Hawks players. While he enjoyed going to Cubs games, Dan could not be convinced to become a fan.
     Dan's real love was Formula One car racing. While he only attended one live F-1 race, he was hooked. In fact, he enjoyed most forms of auto racing, including sports car racing on road courses, Indy car, and NASCAR. Dan attended several races in each category. In NASCAR, Dan's favorite driver was Bill Elliott . When he met Dale Earnhardt, Dale told Dan, “it's okay to favor Bill and I'm glad you're a race fan."
     Having begun college at Arizona State, Dan obtained a BS in computer science at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL. While at NIU, he worked in a school business office automating records and files. He interned one semester at Kemper Corporation, then with Allstate Insurance, where the CEO personally hired Dan for the systems department. Dan was very interested and good at development and he and several others met on-line to develop applications using free-ware to add functionality to the Palm Pilot then to cellphones. In 2003, this led to being discovered by Texas Instruments who offered them jobs if they would relocate to Dallas to assist TI add functionality to the high-end calculator. After several months, priorities changed at TI resulting in Dan joining HRsmart in 2004 which was subsequently acquired by Deltek, a multinational enterprise software and solutions corporation that is a subsidiary of Roper Corporation, a major technology company. He was a Senior Principal Software Engineer functioning on a Deltek team basis supporting HRsmart products and solutions. Dan thought highly of his team, especially their team leader Kenil Shah. He had worked with many of the team, including the leader, most of his career with the company.
     Peter Philippi, pastor of Grace Bible Church-Rolling Meadows, will conduct a memorial service to be held at 2 pm on November 22, 2025 at Meadows Funeral Home, 3615 Kirchoff Road, Rolling Meadows, IL 60008. Visitation will be at 1 pm that same day. The family requests no flowers but that memorials be made to MDA or your favorite charity in Dan's name.