Spilman was born in Wichita, KS, and attended Kansas State University from 1933-1934. He worked for General Motors as a stylist from 1935 to 1939, joining Walter Dorwin Teague Associates in 1940 as a staff designer, and worked for Henry Dreyfuss Associates in New York.
In 1942 he joined Johnson/Cushing/Nevell as director of product design before opening his own office in 1946.
He was president of the American Society of Industrial Designers (ASID) from 1960 to 1962, and was awarded Fellowship in that organization. Upon the merger of ASID and others to form IDSA in 1965, his Fellowship was honored by IDSA. An avid watercolorist, he retired to Cape Cod, MA, in 1999.
