Matel "Mat" Dawson Jr., 81, a Ford Motor Co. forklift operator who donated more than $1.3 million to charities, schools and nonprofit groups, was found dead Saturday in his one-bedroom apartment in Highland Park, Mich. The cause was not immediately known.

He had only an eighth-grade education before moving from Shreveport, La., to Detroit in 1940. He got a job at Ford's Rouge complex in Dearborn and worked there for more than 60 years.

By putting in as much overtime as possible and shunning vacations, Mr. Dawson was earning about $100,000 a year by the time he retired in February. And in 1994, he started giving the money away.