Walter B. Achenbach

1921 - 2016

(News story) Walter B. Achenbach, who was named general manager of Libbey Glass when it was a struggling firm that Owens-Illinois Inc. was considering selling and who retired about 17 years later after the addition of many new products and two more plants employing hundreds more workers, died April 6 at his home in Naples, Fla.

He was 94 and appeared to suffer heart failure, although his son Jay said he was not certain of the exact cause of death.

When Mr. Achenbach was appointed general manager of Libbey in 1968, some Owens-Illinois leaders hoped he might be able to fix the glassware maker up in preparation to sell it, his son said. But Mr. Achenbach, who had an interest in Libbey's pioneering history in glassmaking, wanted O-I to keep the plant that employed hundreds of people in Toledo.

During his years at Libbey, which was known for drinking glasses, it entered new markets, making terrariums, bowls for hanging baskets, kitchen canisters, and promotional glassware for businesses to sell or give away. Libbey started packaging more of its traditional glassware into sets, with the idea that consumers would buy the whole box rather than just a replacement glass or two. O-I not only kept the Toledo plant but added two more plants during his tenure.

He retired in the mid 1980s as a vice president of O-I and general manager of Libbey Glass-Worldwide and within months moved to England where he had been appointed managing director of the Ravenhead Co., an O-I affiliate in St. Helens. He loved living in England and leading the plant that employed hundreds of people in drinking ware production, similar to what he had done at Libbey, albeit on a smaller scale, his son said.

Mr. Achenbach had traveled throughout Europe and in much of South America and Asia during the 1970s for O-I, visiting factories, plants it was considering buying, and operations with which it had technical assistance agreements.

He was born June 29, 1921, in rural Taylorville, Ill. His father's name was also Walter and although his mother called him by his middle name, Bernard, the nickname Curly - perhaps because of his curly, black hair - stuck for life.

He graduated from the University of Illinois with a bachelor's degree in economics and business management and joined O-I in 1943 as an industrial engineer at its glass block plant in Muncie, Ind. Other than brief stateside service in a clerical position with the U.S. Army during World War II, his entire career was with O-I.

"He was very intuitive with numbers," said his son Jay, who also retired from Libbey. "His whole career was built on cost management before they even called it that."

Mr. Achenbach was transferred to Columbus in 1949 to be comptroller at an O-I plant that had started mass producing black and white television bulbs that year.

Over the next two decades, the family moved numerous times. He was named assistant comptroller in 1957 of Kimble Glass Co., then an O-I subsidiary in Vineland, N.J., and three years later he was promoted to director of business planning and analysis for Kimble. He returned to the Columbus TV bulb plant in 1962 as manager. Then, two years later, he was assigned to O-I's Toledo offices, where he was a vice president. The family established itself in a home in Sylvania Township and returned to it after other moves.

Mr. Achenbach and his wife, Jean, played golf and tennis. They were members of Inverness Club locally and later joined clubs at their summer place in Sapphire, N.C., and in Florida, where they had moved in the late 1980s after returning from England. They were married almost 70 years.

Surviving are his wife, Jean; sons, Bruce, Brian, and Jay, and two grandchildren.

A family service in Taylorville, Ill., has yet to be scheduled. Fuller Funeral Home, East Naples, Fla., is handling arrangements.

This is a news story written by Blade staff writer Jane Schmucker. Contact her at: jschmucker@theblade.com or 419-724-6050.