Glenda Ried (1933-2017)

CPA taught at UT, was docent at Wildwood

1/5/2018
BY MARK ZABORNEY
BLADE STAFF WRITER

Glenda Ried, 84, a certified public accountant and University of Toledo professor who for decades taught would-be professionals and encouraged women interested in the field, died Dec. 27 in Atria Park of Glen Ellyn, Ill., an assisted-living facility.

She had Alzheimer’s disease, her son, Rick, said. Formerly of Sylvania and Ohio Living Swan Creek senior community, she moved to Illinois to be near her son.

Ried
Ried

Mrs. Ried was a professor of accounting emeritus, retiring in 1992. She received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business administration from UT. While a graduate student, she was a part-time accounting lecturer. She was an instructor from 1959-61; an assistant professor from 1962-73; an associate professor from 1974-80, and was named a professor in 1981.

She became a widow and single mother at age 45.

During her university career, she did accounting work for small businesses. Her first love was teaching.

“She worked with the students and spent a lot of time,” her son said. “She was tough. She took attendance. She told them, ‘Look, if you show up every day, that shows you’re dedicated to what you’re here to do.’”

Former students stopped her in the mall to thank her for being strict and to say, “’That prepared me for working in the real world,’” her son recalled. “She felt good about giving people the foundation to have a pretty good career.

“She was a pioneer in getting women into that field, especially as a CPA,” her son said. “She wanted to do her part in growing the number of women in the profession.”

When she learned her pay was lower than male colleagues’ who taught and published less than she, Mrs. Ried “marched right in and demanded to be paid equally,” her son said.

Mrs. Ried was a former president of the Toledo chapter of the American Society of Women Accountants. At the national level, she was an editor of The Woman CPA magazine and a former director and vice president of the American Women’s Society of Certified Public Accountants. She’d also been in officer in the Ohio CPA society.

Born June 20, 1933, to Fola and Glenn Thompson, she grew up on Woodsdale Avenue in South Toledo. She was a 1951 graduate of Libbey High School. Her mother, a nurse, told her, “’As a woman, you need to be able to earn your own way in the world,’ and urged her to pursue a profession where she might get by without being married,” her son said.

After she retired, Mrs. Ried liked to give Christmastime tours of the Manor House as a docent at Wildwood Preserve Metropark. She was a former officer in the Ursula Wolcott chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She played golf a bit, but from 1993-2001, she was a greens reporter for the Jamie Farr LPGA tournament.

She and Richard T. Ried married March 23, 1963. He died Feb. 25, 1979.

Surviving are her son, Richard G., and brother, Glenn Thompson.

Services will be private. The family suggests tributes to the Toledo Zoological Society or Mobile Meals of Toledo.

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