Neil J. Huston, a retired Libbey-Owens-Ford sales director who wore his Toledo allegiance on his sleeve, wherever in the country the glassmaker assigned him and in retirement, died Jan. 10 at home in Woodstock, Ga. He was 88.
He had cancer, his daughter, Victoria Taylor, said.
Mr. Huston and his wife, Patricia, formerly of Sylvania Township, lived in Georgia the last 20 years. A gym regular until a fall in November, he was recognizable as the patron wearing a Toledo Mud Hens or Toledo Rockets shirt.
“It led to a lot of friendships,” Mrs. Taylor said. “One of the guys in the gym called him, ‘Toledo.’ He met a woman who was from Toledo. Wearing a Toledo shirt was unique and caused people to say, ‘What’s that on your shirt — the Toledo Mud Hens?’ He brought a joy to a lot of people that way.”
Mr. Huston retired in the late 1990s as director of sales for flat glass products with L-O-F. The British glassmaker Pilkington PLC bought the company the previous decade.
Mr. Huston was a regional sales manager for the company based in Memphis when he returned to Toledo in 1987 through a promotion. Steve Kalosis, then L-O-F’s vice president of sales and marketing was looking for a director of sales for the domestic market — someone with knowledge of the company, but also the customers and product.