George Dimit, an industrial engineer and president of a legacy Toledo manufacturing concern whose technical and leadership know-how won respect from colleagues and higher ups, died Sunday in ProMedica Ebeid Hospice Residence, Sylvania. He was 91.

He had a stroke last week, his son Chris said.

Mr. Dimit of Sylvania Township and formerly of Ottawa Hills retired in 1989 as president of New Mather Metals Inc., which made auto-stabilizer bars. The firm’s owner since 1987, NHK Spring Ltd. of Yokohama, Japan, closed its Toledo plant on North Detroit Avenue in 2010. About a century earlier in Toledo, Gordon Mather founded a company to make leaf springs for use in the mass-produced automobiles of his friend Henry Ford.

Mr. Dimit left Toledo in 1969 after a stint as general manager of the local division of Oldberg Manufacturing Co. He became president of Saginaw Products Corp. and then general manager of Dura Corp.’s plant in Springfield, Ill., then Paris, Ky.

He returned to Toledo in 1974 as general manager of the metal division of the Mather Co. He became vice president in 1977. The company was bought and sold more than once in the 1980s.

When NHK took over, Mr. Dimit delayed retirement at the new owner’s request, his son said.

“He was a natural leader was the main thing,” his son said. “People looked up to him and would follow him anywhere.”

Jerry Cooper, a friend and former Mather Co. colleague, said: “He was the kind of person people trusted.

“People liked him. You just liked to be around George,” said Mr. Cooper, retired chief executive and president of Defiance Inc. “Besides that, he was good. He ran a good operation. His employees had a lot of respect for him. He knew the technical end of it.”

He was born Jan. 23, 1925, in Chicago to Mary and Christ Dimitrakopoulos. He was a 1943 graduate of Englewood High School, where he was captain of the high school football team. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps. He was a pilot and flight instructor and became a lieutenant. He was stationed in Mississippi and distinguished himself on the base football team — and played in an all-Air Corps national football playoff.

Afterward, he received a football scholarship to the University of Illinois. His freshman year, the team went to the Rose Bowl, where on Jan. 1, 1947, the Fighting Illini routed UCLA, 45-14. He played in the fourth quarter as a fullback and linebacker, his son said.

“He’d never seen so many people in the stands before,” his son said.

Mr. Dimit received a bachelor of science degree in industrial engineering from Illinois after three years. He returned home to help in his father’s produce delivery business before his first job in manufacturing.

“He was a success at basically everything he did in life — the Army, college, the business world,” his son said. “He’s one of those guys you never hear about, but he built a pretty good life for himself.”

He was active in the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association and the National Invitational Basketball Tournament and was a member of both group’s athletic halls of fame.

He served on the board of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral.

He was a member of Sylvania Country Club and won a Greek-American senior golf title.

He and his wife, Helen, married in May, 1953. She died Dec. 11, 2000.

Surviving are his daughters, Mary, Stacia, and Georgette Dimit; sons, Chris and Greg Dimit, and seven grandchildren.

Services will be at 11 a.m. today at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral. Arrangements are by the Ansberg-West Funeral Home.

The family suggests tributes to Holy Trinity or ProMedica Ebeid Hospice, Sylvania.

Contact Mark Zaborney at: mzaborney@theblade.com or 419-724-6182.

First Published December 21, 2016, 5:00 a.m.