About Ed Schmidt
Service to others defined Ed Schmidt throughout his career and life.
His first service came at a service station on Monroe Street in Toledo, OH. It was 1929, and the stock market was days from collapse. Ed’s grandmother was worried about the safety of financial institutions, so she and Ed’s grandfather bought a piece of property and invested in a small Gulf gas station.
Soon after, in 1936, Ed graduated from Libbey High School and enrolled at the University of Toledo where he also played basketball 1937-1938. One year after Ed started college, his grandfather, father and uncle established a Pontiac dealership in Pemberville in a local blacksmith’s shop. In 1939, Ed and his brother, Carl, moved the dealership to Perrysburg, where it remains today.
While helping out with the family business and attending night school, Ed graduated from UToledo in 1942 with a marketing degree from the College of Business.
The next business he saw was an 18-month stint in the south Pacific joining the navy as a Harvard business school trained supply officer. Ed fought in the Solomon Islands, and his destroyer took a direct hit from Japanese dive bombers.
The young officer married in 1944, tying the knot with Jessie Mathie. The union lasted until Jessie’s death in 1981. The couple had two children, Terry, an attorney in Florida, and Tom, who ran the Schmidt dealerships.
Ed sailed back to higher ground after the war when he began running the Pontiac dealership while his brother Carl ran a Chevrolet dealership, also in Perrysburg.
In 1952, Ed became the dealer for GMC truck in Maumee and then, in 1978 Ed Schmidt Pontiac moved from its home on East Indiana to North Dixie Highway. In 1987, his Pontiac dealership ranked #1 in the United States in customer satisfaction ratings. His GMC truck dealership was also one of forty three dealerships in the country to earn the GMC 5-star general award. What Ed also learned is that his clients wanted more products from which to choose. Two years later, he acquired Kahn’s Volvo and Saab. Soon after, he added Volkswagon and Volvo heavy truck lines. In 1993, his company added Southwyck Jeep/Eagle. Since then, Hummer, Mitsubishi, Ford, and Chevrolet franchises were added.
Ed’s philosophy was to take care of the customer and the rest will come. That was his way of life. Ed, who was married in 1987 to Suzanne Gardner, was a philanthropist who, when he wasn’t spending time with his six grandchildren, was always helping others. He made generous gifts to the Toledo Symphony, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Zoo, and the Toledo Community Foundation. At UToledo, the lifetime member and sponsor of Alumni Association activities returned much more than one could imagine and in 2001 was inducted into the College of Business Administration Hall of Fame and named as one of the college’s million dollar partners for his transformational gift to endow the Edward H. Schmidt School of Professional Sales (ESSPS). That $1.5 million investment laid the foundation for the recently formed professional sales major to leverage their first mover advantage and become one of the world’s premier collegiate sales programs. Creating knowledge, shaping people, and making connections to transform the profession of sales is part of Ed’s legacy.
When Ed passed in 2005, the UToledo Alumni Association Board of Trustees renamed the Outstanding Young Alum Award in his memory.
Ed’s son, Tom, alongside Tom’s wife, Connie (c/o 1981, 2008), continue to steward Ed’s gifts at UToledo. Their daughter, Betsy, is a proud 2012 alumna who went through the Edward H. Schmidt School of Professional Sales.