O-I exec, engineer traveled the world

6/4/2006

James Palmer Hancock, 76, a former president of the Ottawa Hills Board of Education who was an industrial engineer and financial manager for Owens-Illinois Inc., died of cancer on Thursday at his home in Wood County s Middleton Township.

Mr. Hancock, formerly of Ottawa Hills, retired from his 30-year O-I career in 1985. Afterward, he worked at the former Trustcorp and was a development officer at the Toledo Community Foundation.

He found his work at the non-profit foundation especially fulfilling, his wife, Shirley, said. He volunteered as a board member and president in the 1970s of what was then Family Service of Greater Toledo and as a member of the United Way of Greater Toledo allocation committee.

Yet he did not trumpet his activities.

He was a man without pretension, his wife said.

His son Gregory added: A good word for it would be humble.

Mr. Hancock was a member of the Ottawa Hills school board from 1977 to 1984.

In retirement, he and his wife traveled the globe, including Europe, central and south Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.

We were always looking for different cultures, and the more remote the better, his wife said.

He had been a treasurer and a member of the vestry of St. Michael s in the Hills Episcopal Church.

He was a man of great faith, his wife said. His family were founding members of that church, and we are very connected to it.

Mr. Hancock grew up in West Toledo and was a graduate of Culver Military Academy and Yale University. He was an Army veteran and served in Korea just after the war there.

Surviving are his wife, Shirley, whom he married Aug. 23, 1952; sons, James P., Jr., Jeffrey, and Gregory Hancock; sister, Janice Baker, and four grandchildren.

There will be no visitation. Memorial services will be at 11 a.m. Friday in St. Michael s in the Hills Episcopal Church, Ottawa Hills. Arrangements are by the J. Jeffrey Fretti Funeral Home.

The family suggests tributes to the church; the Opportunity Fund at the Toledo Community Foundation, or Hospice of Northwest Ohio.