Kevin Xavier Smith

1952 - 2018

(News story) Kevin Xavier Smith, the chief executive officer and legal counsel for the Associated General Contractors of Northwest Ohio who volunteered with numerous civic and youth organizations, died Saturday in his Toledo home. He was 66.

Mr. Smith had suffered with long-term liver problems but had recently been taken off a transplant list because his condition had improved, said his wife of 33 years, Mary Pat Smith, who described his passing as sudden and its precise cause unknown.

His hiring as the local contractors' association's head and chief negotiator in 2010 marked his second stint in that position. He had previously left the AGC to become vice president of business development at Bostleman Corp., one of metro Toledo's general contractors, but the association's board in 2010 wooed him back.

"He was fair and honest and a hard worker," said Stan Delventhal, project executive at A.A. Boos and, at the time, chairman of the AGC trustees, of which he is still a member.

As the council's top lawyer, Mr. Smith was the contractors' lead negotiator with the Toledo area's building-trades labor unions.

"He had a knack for negotiating," Mr. Delventhal said. "Kevin made both sides feel like they were winners, which takes a special person."

Mr. Smith served on the volunteer boards of the local Make-a-Wish Foundation, Catholic Charities, Toledo Botanical Garden, and the Toledo Rotary, as well as on the Toledo Public Schools' community oversight committee and Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church's finance committee.

Mrs. Smith said her husband had been working before his death on raising money for a Make-a-Wish child who hoped to travel to meet Pope Francis.

"I think he just truly wanted to help people," she said. "He really did. He wanted to leave a mark of some kind."

Through OLPH, he also coached Catholic Youth Organization football and basketball, as well as basketball at the South Toledo YMCA, Mrs. Smith said.

"He was like another dad to some of the kids," she said.

Born Feb. 10, 1952, Mr. Smith was the oldest of seven children for Kevin F. and Pat Smith, and graduated St. John's Jesuit High School, Xavier University, and, in 1977, the University of Toledo College of Law.

Mike Manahan, a fellow UT law grad and Mr. Smith's roommate for most of the time before he married Mary Pat Vandenbroek, said Mr. Smith worked briefly for his father's Jennite business before answering an ad from the Associated General Contractors.

"He was very passionate, very outspoken," Mr. Manahan recalled. "He was honest, trustworthy, and very principled."

In 2016, the university gave Mr. Smith its Davenport-Longenecker Lifetime Achievement Award and inducted him into its Entrepreneurial and Business Excellence Hall of Fame.

Mr. Delventhal, who counted Mr. Smith as a close friend as well as a business associate, said Mr. Smith "played a lot of golf," which cultivated friendships and business relationships. Mr. Smith joined the Toledo Country Club's board of trustees in 1998 and was its president from 2003 until 2005, relatives said.

"It's like a four-hour conversation," Mr. Delventhal said of the sport. "You get to know a lot about a person."

Mrs. Smith said her husband did his community work "very quietly - I didn't even know about all of it," citing as an example of the latter his involvement in getting the Toledo Dog Park built on the former South Toledo Y site.

"He made time for it," Mr. Delventhal agreed about his friend's civic roles. "He couldn't say no to that type of stuff. He jumped in with both legs."

Along with his wife, Mary Pat, Mr. Smith is survived by his brothers, Mike and Pete Smith; sisters, Shelley Murnen, Laurie Yeager, Sheila Flanagan, and Christie Stichter; daughters, Devon Depa and Moira Smith; sons, Connor and Colin Smith, and one grandson.

The family will receive visitors after 2 p.m. Thursday at the Coyle Funeral Home, 1770 S. Reynolds Rd., with a vigil service scheduled for 7 p.m. Funeral services will begin at 9:15 a.m. Friday in the mortuary, followed by Mass in Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church at 10 a.m.

The family suggests tributes to the Kevin F. Smith Scholarship Fund at St. John's Jesuit or the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

This is a news story by David Patch. Contact him at: dpatch@theblade.com or 419-724-6094.