Hutchinson ? Richard W. Dillon, who helped build the Dillons grocery store concept into a nationwide retailer, died Wednesday. He was 74.

“It’s a huge loss to the community,” said Lynette Lacy, director of the Hutchinson Community Foundation, which Dillon started. “He was a man with a purpose and with a heart.”

Dillon, son of Ray Dillon, founder of the Dillons chain, died at a Hutchinson hospital.

He spent nearly 40 years working with the Dillons stores, where associates remembered him as a builder and a doer.

“What made him tick as an executive was his affection for the people he worked with while at the same time setting high standards of performance,” said Joe Pichler, a former Kansas University business dean and now chairman and chief executive officer of Kroger in Cincinnati.

Dillons merged with the Kroger chain in January 1983. After the merger, Dillon became a member of the Kroger board of directors. He was also chairman of the board of Dillon Cos. in 1989 when he retired.

“He once told me that what he really wanted to do with his life was run that apple orchard north of Hutchinson,” Pichler said. “He would have been perfectly happy doing that.

“How exceptional is that? Here’s a guy who with Paul and Ace built a New York Stock Exchange company and he says at 55 he’d have been happy running the orchard. That’s a window into Dick Dillon’s soul.”

Dillon’s cousin, Paul, who teamed with Ray “Ace” Dillon Jr. and Richard to run the company, starting in the 1960s, said Dillon had high standards.

“Dick was about honesty,” Paul Dillon said. “Dick had to come up and learn the ropes like we all did, but in a short time he was president of the company at a time when it was growing in a lot of ways.”

Dillon’s “full-time” career in the stores kicked off in 1950. Among the things Dillon introduced to Dillons stores were generic label merchandise and unit pricing.

“I think that one of the nicest things that happened with Uncle Ray was the two sons he had who didn’t have to work,” Paul Dillon said. “Instead, they rolled up their sleeves and made the company better because of their efforts.”

That came about, Paul Dillon said, because of the way Ray introduced the trio to the grocery business.

“We started with pop stands in the stores at 8 or 9,” he said. “We worked the nights, rode the truck. … When you ride a truck to Liberal and it’s 110, you understand why that driver’s grumpy.”

Memorial services were scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday in Hutchinson.