A Life Well Lived: Tim Dimengo ’66

Tim Dimengo ’66 doesn’t look back on his life with regret; he looks back on it with a sense of wisdom, gratitude and perspective. “Peace of mind is so important,” Dimengo said.

The 1966 Hoban graduate was the oldest of a large Catholic family from Stow, Ohio, to attend Hoban after a life growing up as a “walker” at Holy Family Parish School. “Walkers” could go home for lunch, and his house on Englewood Drive in Stow was just around the corner from Wetmore Park. Today, his home sits on the sixth hole of Siena Golf Course in the beautiful Vegas suburb of Summerlin, Nevada. As I sit with him over a coffee and pastry at the off-strip Durango Casino food court in Summerlin, Nevada, he reflects on the lessons he has learned from a successful career that saw him elevated quickly from a sales team member to manager of his division. He was the youngest employee ever hired for this position in a company [Fleet Pharma] that was 100 years old.

One of the most important lessons was autonomy—the courage to call his own shots. “I was 28 years old and had just been promoted to a position as a division manager. I was now in charge of all these guys in their 40s and 50s. I had a few issues occur in my team, and I went to my VP of Sales and asked him what he thought about a proposal I had created. He looked at me and said, ‘I don’t care about your problems, and I don't want to hear about them. I hired you because we believed in you—now go figure it out.”

Dimengo took the tough advice, figured it out and never looked back. His next company, Selfcare, would eventually sell Johnson and Johnson one of the first diabetes blood glucose monitoring devices for nearly $1 billion. He relocated to Vegas for a new opportunity 26 years ago, where his son was in school at UNLV for hospitality management. Even his brother, Michael, joined him out West.

It’s no surprise his tough and savvy Italian heritage shone through in Dimengo’s success. His Dad taught him to have no fear, work hard and to listen. “Sales is really about listening to people, and the rest will take care of itself,” Dimengo said. “Hoban set me on a path of goodness, solid fundamentals and structure…to be there for other people is the key. Sometimes I feel like every phase of my life, I had a good luck charm with me along the way…I think it’s because I’ve always tried to take care of other people, and perhaps that energy came back to me.”

“Brother John Benesh made an impression on me with his intelligence and ability to solve hard questions in calculus,” Dimengo said. “Coach Ralph Readout too—he was regimented and disciplined…took no crap from us…and taught with a seriousness where we knew it was time to learn.”

He went on to Miami University in Oxford during a time when students still wore sports coats and dress shirts to football games and events. He succeeded there largely due to the high level of discipline he had learned at Hoban, and from his father's and mother’s wisdom. “My Dad really taught me to never be afraid,” Dimengo said. “He told me in your 20s and 30s learn as much as you can, in your 40s make as much wealth as you can, and in your 50s start to control what you can control.”

Dimengo faced a tough choice to retire or keep working in his mid-50s. His Dad’s early death at age 59 always haunted him a bit. He didn’t want to miss out on life due to the silent but pervasive stress of work and busyness. Ultimately, he wonders still to this day if he did it right by continuing to work into his 60s with a start-up company that went public. When pondering this question out loud lately, his wife put it all in perspective. She said, “You know, you have a right to be happy. You’re entitled to be happy.”

Dimengo listened to his wife, and today he enjoys his mornings at the Marriott Rampart Hotel coffee shop, where he and six of his fellow retirees solve all the world’s problems. A health setback has him using a walker, but he hopes to shed it for a cane in a few weeks. He drives, has a sharp mind and hopes to connect with relatives back home soon. “In reality, I’m the luckiest man in the world. I have peace of mind, and I really want to make it back to Ohio soon to see Hoban and treat my family to a ball game up at the stadium.”

Timothy Dimengo personifies all that is good about the Midwest’s family values and gratitude. He is just another example of the light and vibrance of a Hoban education. As his dad said, we all just need to have no fear, take chances and listen. When in doubt, listen. If the answers don’t readily come, just go figure it out with a never-say-die spirit.