Robert E. Seymour, a Meadville native who advanced from accounting clerk to president at Peoples Natural Gas Co. despite having only a high school diploma, died Saturday at the age of 92.

Born May 16, 1916, Mr. Seymour graduated from Meadville High School in 1933 and began working at the Talon zipper factory. In 1939, he moved to Pittsburgh to take a temporary job with Peoples as an accounting clerk.

According to his son Donald, there may have been a second reason -- Helen Dixon, whom he met in Meadville when she was a student at Allegheny College, lived in Pittsburgh. They married in 1940.

In 1942, Mr. Seymour joined the Army. He was commissioned as an officer in 1943 and served as a tank commander with the 12th Armored Division in Germany, Belgium and France. In 1946, he was discharged with the rank of captain.

Returning to Peoples, he steadily progressed through the ranks until he became company president in 1963. Five years later, in 1968, he moved beyond Peoples into the position of executive vice president at Peoples' parent company, Consolidated Natural Gas, before it became part of Dominion Resources. Just two years after that, he became president of Consolidated. In 1974, he became chairman of CNG's board of directors, and in 1979, chairman of the board's executive committee.

Donald Seymour attributed his father's success to "a voracious aptitude for learning the things he needed to know to do the job he had been assigned ... he just did the best he could each step along the way."

Even after retiring in 1981, Mr. Seymour was drawn back into an executive suite, serving the financially troubled Pittsburgh Brewing Co. without salary, as president in 1981-82 and as chairman from 1981 through 1986, when the company was sold to an Australian firm.

Active in civic life, Mr. Seymour served on the boards of the American Red Cross, Carnegie Mellon University, UPMC Montefiore and the National Alliance of Businessmen. He was the Pittsburgh chairman of the United Negro College Fund.

Mt. Lebanon Public Library became "a real love of his, partly I think because he didn't have a formal education," Don Seymour said. "He really valued education and resources such as libraries," and devoted a great deal of time to the library's development.

He is survived by four sons, Robert of Scottsdale, Ariz., Don of Mt. Lebanon, John of Birmingham, Ala., and Richard of Mt. Lebanon; 13 grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.

Visitation will be from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. tomorrow at Beinhauer Mortuary, 2828 Washington Road, Peters. The funeral will be private.

Memorial gifts may be made to the American Red Cross, Southwestern Pennsylvania Chapter, P.O. Box 371997, Pittsburgh, PA 15251.