DALE HALTON: A pioneering CEO helped put the fizz back in a struggling family business.

• Author: Infanzon, Vanessa
• Position: Pillars of North Carolina

When Dale Halton stepped in as president of Pepsi-Cola Bottling Co. of Charlotte in 1981, she was a rare female CEO. The business was close to insolvency and, Pepsico's corporate leaders were threatening to pull the franchise from her family, which had been affiliated with the soft-drink company for more than 70 years.

Halton and General Manager Darrell Holland, who had joined the company in 1970, reorganized the company's business plan for its nine-county franchise and empowered the 400 employees to do their work with less meddling from headquarters, she says.

Within several years, the franchise was ahead of its larger Coca-Cola rival in overall soft-drink market share in the Charlotte region, Halton says. Success continued through her tenure until 2005, when Pepsi Bottling Group, then the world's largest Pepsi bottler, bought her family business, the ninth-largest U.S. bottler, for an undisclosed sum. It was then Charlotte's biggest female-owned company, the Charlotte Business Journal reported.

Saving the company from ruin was personal for Halton, whose grandparents, Henry and Sadie Fowler, opened the business in Charlotte in 1905, 12 years after New Bern pharmacist Caleb Bradham created "Brad's Drink." It was renamed Pepsi in 1898. Halton's birth name is Barksdale Fowler Dick.

Since the sale, Halton has remained an active philanthropist best known for her support of UNC Charlotte, where the basketball arena bears her name, and Central Piedmont Community College, which has a Halton theater. She's also served on many boards, including that of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra.

While part of a privileged family, Halton brands herself as a fierce supporter of the underdog. Country clubs aren't her style, she says, preferring to entertain a lunch group of longtime friends in her Myers Park neighborhood home.

Her latest passion is Aspire Carolinas Foundation, where she teamed with veteran Charlotte nonprofit executive Jennifer Nichols to create a school for third-through-eighth graders with learning disabilities related to Asperger's syndrome and autism spectrum disorder. The Halton School has been operating for three years with a break-even budget. With additional fundraising, Halton envisions the program starting a charter school, focusing on vocational training for trades such as plumbing and culinary arts.

Halton has an extensive collection of Native American and Western American art from the many years she had a second home near Telluride...