Chester Devenow, a titan of local industry who almost single-handedly created a Fortune 500 company and who later was called upon to mediate many high-profile management-labor disputes, died of lymphoma yesterday at the Hospice of Northwest Ohio's Toledo Center. He was 86.

Mr. Devenow had the confidence of both labor and management, and his circle of friends included the likes of Lee Iacocca and the late Henry Ford II in the automotive world as well as labor leaders for the United Auto Workers, Teamsters, and other unions.

"Chester was, in my opinion, one of the primary management people in the entire community as far as getting things done on the labor front," said Louis Thomson, Jr., retired executive director of Toledo's Labor-Management-Citizens Committee, on which Mr. Devenow served as a board member for more than two decades.

A retired industrialist and bank executive, Mr. Devenow was also active behind the scenes, working to keep new Jeep plants in Toledo and to build a downtown ballpark for the Toledo Mud Hens. He served on numerous civic and nonprofit boards and was long a supporter of the arts.

"Chester was a community asset," said John Robinson Block, publisher and editor-in-chief of The Blade. Mr. Devenow served for years as an adviser to the board of Block Communications Inc., the parent company of The Blade.

"He was a great man and a great Toledoan, not just because he was a very successful businessman but because his leadership extended far into the social realm. He had a social conscience: He respected labor and people who were disadvantaged," Mr. Block said.

"Chester was someone you could call whether there was a business problem, a political situation, or a civic affair. He was so much broader than most executives," Mr. Block said.

Mr. Devenow was born March 3, 1919, in Detroit, to Samuel and Bessie Devenow. His father, a Russian immigrant, worked as a laborer for Ford Motor Co. and later became a small manufacturer of store fixtures and restaurant equipment.

After graduation from Detroit's Central High School, Mr. Devenow studied music for a time at the Juilliard School in New York City, where he befriended a fellow student, the late singer Burl Ives. Mr. Devenow got a degree in political science from New York University in 1941 and soon enrolled in Harvard's law school.

But in the early days of World War II, he became an Army intelligence officer attached to Gen. Douglas MacArthur's staff in the Pacific. He received a Bronze Star.

After the war, Mr. Devenow married Marilyn Fruchtman, a Toledoan, and managed several of the Fruchtman companies in this area. By 1961, he was managing Globe-Wernicke Industries, which included two local operations - City Auto Stamping and City Machine & Tool - and a furniture-manufacturing and office-supply firm in Cincinnati.

In 1966, Mr. Devenow engineered a maneuver that brought his little company into the big time - in a merger that The Blade called "a case of Jonah swallowing the whale."

His firm, with annual sales of just $39 million a year, took over Sheller Manufacturing Corp. in Detroit, with sales of $89 million annually, with some help from the late Jack Martin, who was then president of Dana Corp.

The resulting company, Sheller-Globe Corp., became a major automotive supplier with sales of nearly $1 billion annually before it was taken over in 1986. It eventually became a unit of United Technologies.

"He was good friends with Jack Martin, and Dana owned about 20 percent of Sheller's stock and was wanting to get out of Sheller," recalled William Patterson, former executive vice president of Sheller-Globe. "We got permission to buy Dana's shares of Sheller, then we pushed for a merger."

Tom Kress, a retired chief financial officer for Sheller-Globe, said, "Chester was a guy with a lot of energy and motivation. He was very imaginative."

After the Sheller-Globe sale, Mr. Devenow intended to retire, but was pressed into service as a banker when Trustcorp Inc. - the city's biggest bank - was struggling because of more than $100 million in bad loans. Banking regulators called on Mr. Devenow to be chairman during the transition that led to the sale of Trustcorp to Cleveland's Society Corp., which in turn was acquired by KeyCorp.

Mr. Devenow "left his mark," said James Hoffman, now president of KeyBank in northwest Ohio. "Chester always worked on a way to get a deal done. He always found a way."

Mr. Devenow was well known for his sartorial splendor. He wore hand-tailored suits and elegant shirts and neckties, and he always had a handkerchief in his jacket pocket. Every year, Mr. Devenow personally selected hundreds of neckties to send as holiday presents to businessmen, labor leaders, politicians, and whoever else he thought needed a touch of style.

"Chester was a wonderful, kind gentleman, who was always interested in seeing the city prosper," said Sandy Isenberg, a former Toledo council member and Lucas County commissioner. "He was a very good person, who commanded a great deal of respect."

Mr. Ford respected Mr. Devenow so much that, during Mr. Devenow's tenure at Sheller-Globe, the automotive giant used his power to get Mr. Devenow admitted into some of Detroit's private clubs that had been closed to Jews previously.

Mr. Devenow chaired such groups as the Toledo Area Chamber of Commerce, Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Northwestern Ohio board, the Ohio State University board of trustees, and the board of Siena Heights College in Adrian.

"He was a very active and supportive board member," said Bob Bell, president of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra. "He was always mindful of what others did and wanted to see that they were appreciated and received recognition. He was always thinking of others and was not interested in getting recognition for himself."

Even in retirement, Mr. Devenow helped several fledgling companies get off the ground, including the Trust Co. of Toledo, a financial institution founded by former executives of the old Toledo Trust banking organization.

"When you do a startup company it's very helpful to have people to encourage you, and Chester was one of those," said David Snavely, a partner in Trust Co. of Toledo. "He has always been a friend and somebody I could talk to, and he gave us an outside perspective of how we were doing. He sincerely wanted to see local companies thrive."

Among the boards Mr. Devenow has served on are the University of Toledo Foundation, the Toledo Museum of Art, the National Energy Foundation, the Northwest Ohio Center for Labor-Management Cooperation, and Ohio's Technology and Productivity Center.

He was a recipient of the 1981 Ohio Governor's Award. He is an honorary founder of St. Vincent Medical Center and was a recipient of the Heritage Award of Yeshiva University. His many club memberships included the Jockey Club in Miami, the Marco Polo Club in New York, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., the Palm Beach Yacht Club, and in the Toledo area, Belmont Country Club, the Inverness Club, and the Toledo Club.

He is survived by Maudette, his wife of 27 years; his brother, Leonard; sons Mark and Jeffrey; daughter Susie Devenow; stepchildren William Schachner and Abigail Schachner, and six grandchildren.

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