Frederick Schwier

1923 - 2023

News story
By Mark Zaborney
Blade Staff Writer

Frederick Schwier, who was president of glassmaking giant Libbey-Owens-Ford Co. before taking the helm of Aro Corp. of Bryan, died Feb. 25 at Hospice of Northwest Ohio, Perrysburg Township. He was 99.

He'd been in declining health only in recent months, said his wife, Priscilla Lamb Schwier.

"He was so active, and he had so many interests and was always enthusiastic about the next day," Mrs. Schwier said. "I think he had the joy of life."

Mr. Schwier stepped down in early 1986 from Aro. He'd become chairman, president, and chief executive on Sept. 1, 1983. The firm's spectrum of products, including fluid-power equipment, resembled the lineup offered by Aeroquip Corp., of Jackson, Mich., an L-O-F subsidiary of which Mr. Schwier was former president.

He became L-O-F president and chief operating officer in September, 1980. He moved to company headquarters in Toledo in January, 1979 from Aeroquip's offices in Jackson when he was appointed an L-O-F executive vice president. During that tenure, he remained president of Aeroquip, L-O-F's largest subsidiary, with thousands of employees worldwide.

"He had a quick wit, and he had a generous heart," said Lissa Guyton, his stepdaughter. "He was about people as well as product. He was the type of person you wanted to follow."

In a 1983 talk to the Toledo Lions Club, Mr. Schwier discussed the challenges of the era - from adapting to manufacturing methods that seemed to give Japanese automakers an advantage to the need for a new era of workplace cooperation.

"We must inspire worker involvement and willingness to adopt improved practices and systems that will help restore our competitive place in world markets," Mr. Schwier said in 1983. Likewise, change would require "the will and the desire to implement a type of management that fosters change in attitude and improved performance."

He said it was time to "knock off" the adversarial attitude that so often typified U.S. labor-management relations.

"Within the rank and file, as well as within supervision, the idea is becoming more accepted that we protect employment only by being more productive and cost efficient, as well as quality conscious, in all of our operations," he told the Lions Club.

Mr. Schwier had worked in the purchasing department of General Electric Co., in his native Fort Wayne, Ind., before he joined Aeroquip in 1951 as an industrial sales engineering trainee. He became a sales engineer, was named general sales manager of the aircraft division and, by the late 1960s, was a divisional vice president of marketing.

"He was very personable," Mrs. Schwier said. "He was very witty, which helped with the sales certainly. He was able to present in very clear terms, but also with some wit, his opinions. He got along with people, and he enjoyed people.

"He was a hard worker who also was a perfectionist. He worked very hard for success," she said.

Ms. Guyton added: "He was extremely successful, but he was quiet about his accomplishments and that modesty made him all the more rare.

"He was a true gentleman. I believe that people like Fred Schwier only pass this way every now and then and how lucky we were he came our way and stayed with us for so many years," said Ms. Guyton, a reporter for WTVG-TV, Channel 13.

Before becoming Aeroquip's executive vice president, he was vice president and general manager of operations at the subsidiary that later comprised its aerospace division. He was elected to the L-O-F board in 1979.

He was a past trustee of Flower Hospital in Sylvania and Crestview Center, an adjacent retirement complex. He was general chairman of the 1982 northwest Ohio fund-raising campaign for the United Negro College Fund. He also was a former board member of Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio.

"He was eager to develop this historically Black college," said Mrs. Schwier, who also served on the Wilberforce board. "That was one of his greatest interests and concerns, and he worked very closely with other board members and the administration to develop the opportunities there."

He was on the boards of Tecumseh Products Co.; Kysor Industrial Corp.; Comerica Bank, and the Toledo Trust Company.

He also had a role in Great Lakes Communications Inc., the family broadcasting business founded by his wife's late father, Edward O. "Ted" Lamb, a prominent Toledo industrialist and labor lawyer.

"He was a great counselor for that," Mrs. Schwier said.

He was born Sept. 28, 1923, in Fort Wayne to Louise and Frederick Schwier. Challenges of childhood, including the death of his father, spurred his empathy and his impulse to help others, his wife said.

He was a Purdue University student when drafted into the Army during World War II.

Part of an engineering unit, he landed at Normandy after D-Day. He helped make sure troops received supplies for what would be the Battle of the Bulge.

Afterward, he was bound for the Pacific Theater when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The war's end followed shortly, and he was stationed on Okinawa for a year before his discharge, Mrs. Schwier said. He was a master sergeant and was awarded the Bronze Star.

He regarded Michigan State University his alma mater, although through his military service he'd attended other schools. He was a graduate of the advanced management program at Harvard University's business school.

He played golf across the globe, including renowned courses in Scotland and Ireland, and enjoyed fly fishing.

He took up color photography in retirement, and his gift giving afterward included framed prints of flowers and nature scenes he photographed.

"He wanted to be very good, and he was," Mrs. Schwier said.

The photography was another facet of Mr. Schwier that made an impression on Susan Reams, a longtime Toledo-area arts advocate. The Schwiers, Mrs. Reams, and her late husband, Frazier Reams, Jr., traveled and socialized through the years.

"He was outstanding in every endeavor he started. Everything he did he did with flair," Mrs. Reams said. "Here is an engineer and a big businessman, and he took beautiful photographs as well. He was creative."

He was preceded in death by his first wife, Elizabeth.

Surviving are his wife, Priscilla Lamb Schwier, whom he married May 11, 1984; son, Rick Schwier; daughter, Fran Schwier; stepdaughter, Lissa Guyton; stepson, Robert Guyton; three grandchildren, and two step-grandchildren.

Memorial services were Saturday. Arrangements were by Maison-Dardenne-Walker Funeral Home.

The family suggests tributes to the outreach programs of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Maumee, where he was a member; any dog rescue or shelter, or a charity of the donor's choice.