Erie businessman and philanthropist Joe Prischak, founder and chairman of the Plastek Group who pioneered the plastics engineering program at Penn State Behrend, died Saturday at age 91.

Prischak grew up on a dairy farm in Crawford County, came to Erie with $20 in his pocket and went to work "grinding scrap plastic parts at Erie Resistor in the 1940s," the family said.

Before he formed his first business, Prischak served in the U.S. Army from 1951 to 1953.

He launched the Triangle Tool Company in 1956 while in his early 20s before founding Plastek in 1971, which today is a worldwide manufacturer of plastic packaging with production facilities in four countries, including the United Kingdom, Mexico and Brazil.

"(Saturday) we lost Triangle Tool’s and Plastek’s founder Joe Prischak," wrote Prischak's sons, Dennis, Daniel, Douglas and Donald Prischak, on the Plastek Facebook page. "He was a tremendous husband, father, grand-father, great-grand-father, friend, colleague, and humanitarian that inspired and impacted hundreds of thousands of lives around the world.

"He was a genuine, down to earth person who loved his family, his friends, his work, and his extended Plastek family," the statement continued. "His passion, energy, enthusiasm, and love for life showed through in every thing he ever did. We will miss him and be forever grateful for the companies he started, the opportunities he created for so many, and in the case of Africa 6000, the many lives he saved."

Prischak created Africa 6000 International in 2007 to provide safe drinking water to people in Africa. The charity, which is a subsidiary of WorldServe International, was named "on behalf of the 6,000 African children who were dying daily from waterborne disease because they had very little water to drink, and what they did have was contaminated," according to its website. Since its founding, the number of children dying daily from contaminated water or dehydration has fallen to 4,000.

Africa 6000 International has drilled water wells in Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda.

Prischak also founded the Erie-based HaVACo Technologies, which manufactures plastic 2X2s, grilles, diffusers, vents and start collars. In 2002, Prischak opened the Lake Erie Speedway south of North East. He even created his own health insurance company, the Alliance Health Plan, in the early 1990s.

The plastics engineering technology program he launched at Behrend, which is the world's largest undergraduate plastics degree program, is one of only four programs in the entire country accredited by the Engineering Technology Accreditation Commission of ABET. It has produced 1,100 graduates.

An academic building on the Behrend campus is named for the Prischak family.

So successful has the program been that Prischak replicated it at the University of Bratislava, in the Slovak Republic in 1991.

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“Joe Prischak was a pioneer and a visionary who understood from the start how plastics would revolutionize the design and packaging of products we use every day,” Penn State Behrend Chancellor Ralph Ford said. “His legacy in the plastics industry, the Erie community and at Penn State Behrend will last for generations.

“He brought entrepreneurial thinking not only to his business, but to his philanthropy as well — using his generosity to advance opportunities that improve lives,” Ford said.

The family has supported the university through the Joseph and Isabel Prischak Trustee Scholarship, which provides aid to students from Crawford County and Conneaut Area Senior High School, and the Prischak Family Trustee Scholarship. The latter benefits children and grandchildren of Plastek Group employees.

Prischak and his wife Isabel were presented Behrend's highest award, the Behrend Medallion, which is given to individuals who — by their service to society — have brought honor to their profession, their community, and themselves.

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The same year, Prischak was inducted into the Plastics Industry Association's Plastics Hall of Fame. In 2016, Prischak was the recipient of the Commitment to Erie Legacy Award by the Erie Times-News.

Jake Rouch, vice president of economic development division at the Erie Regional Chamber & Growth Partnership, was a classmate of Douglas Prischak at Cathedral Prep. That's when Rouch got to know Joe Prischak.

Joe Prischak was one of many entrepreneurs who "got hatched out of the Erie Resistor company," Rouch said.

"Erie Resistor is kind of the birth mother of so many companies in the area where people learned the trade. But nobody did it bigger and better than Joe did," Rouch said. "He learned it there and then he has the raw entrepreneurial spirit to bet on himself and along the way he built one of the largest employers in Erie County. But he didn't just build it for himself. He gets involved in Penn State and helps them build a program that's nationally recognized and helps not just him but all of the plastics companies."

That Prischak's children are involved in the company and have followed their father's path of growing the business in the Erie community speaks volumes to his legacy, Rouch said.

He was successful, but never carried himself that way, Rouch added. He was genuine, humble and not "bewitched by the success he achieved." He'd speak more about his children and grandchildren than he would about his business accomplishments. And no one in the plastics industry would ever say anything but positive things about Prischak, Rouch said.

"He reflects the best there is about Erie," he said. "His commitment can't be underestimated. He channeled his energy into solving problems. In the modern era, he was definitely an industrial titan that did a lot of good in Erie."

Prischak is survived by his wife, Isabel, and five sons, Dennis, Daniel, Donald, Douglas and David, several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Contact Matthew Rink at mrink@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ETNrink.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Joe Prischak, Erie plastics pioneer Plastek Group founder, dies at 91