BATON ROUGE — Newton Thomas, a former LSU baseball player and founder of an industrial construction firm, died over the weekend. He was 81.

Thomas, a catcher on LSU's baseball team, a cheerleader and a member of Sigma Chi fraternity, graduated from LSU in 1967 with a degree in electrical engineering.

After spending several years with South Instruments in various positions, including president, the LSU alumnus founded what is now known as the Newtron Group with two fellow LSU electrical engineer graduates.

The company would eventually grow into one of the nation's largest privately owned specialty industrial construction companies. The Newtron Group is now a $1 billion company employing 4,500 across Louisiana, Texas, California and Nevada.

"The company was founded on Thomas’ values, which hold that all employees should be treated with respect and dignity," LSU said in a statement.

In 2015, Thomas was named the LSU Alumnus of the Year, and he was inducted into the LSU Alumni Hall of Distinction.

Thomas was also the founding chairman of the Dean’s Advisory Council of the LSU College of Engineering and a member of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Advisory Board. He was inducted into the LSU College of Engineering Hall of Distinction in 1994, LSU said.

Among his accolades, he also served on the Board of Trustees and was past chairman of AMIkids of Baton Rouge, a non-profit rehabilitation program for adjudicated youth in the juvenile justice system. For this work, Thomas received President George H.W. Bush’s 1,000 Points of Light award.