AUGUSTA – Richard L. Crommett, 70, of Grey Birch Drive and formerly of Carrabassett Valley, died in the early hours of Saturday, Dec. 4, after a courageous battle with cancer.

He was born in Augusta Dec. 19, 1933, the son of Vaughan and Alberta Luce Crommett.

Mr. Crommett was a member of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church of Augusta.

He received his B.S. Degree in chemical engineering from the University of Maine in 1955, and had an additional year of pulp and paper management course work at the university. He also received his commission in the United States Army in 1955 as 2nd Lt., and retired from military service with the Army Reserve as a colonel after 32 years of service.

He was employed by Eastern Fine Paper & Pulp Division of Brewer as technical director from 1956 to 1968. Subsequently, Dick was employed by Diamond International Corp. of Boston, Mass. as technical sales engineer 1968 to 1970; James River Corp. of Berlin, N.H., first as technical manager of paper operations, and later as production manager from 1980-1982; Strathmore Paper Co. of Westfield, Mass., first as Woronoco Mills manager from 1982 to 1989, then as assistant manager of operations from 1989-1994, and finally as manager of plant closures from 1994 to 1995. In that capacity, he managed two facilities in Massachusetts and one in Wisconsin, directing closure operations including personnel, environmental maters, public and media relations, expenditures for closure, and disposal of the manufacturing assets of each facility.

Upon retirement, Dick returned to Carrabassett Valley, where he had maintained a second home in Campbell Field for more than 40 years. He was known as the “Mayor of Campbell Field,” and coordinated the snowplowing and other chores required by the subdivision.

He was a founding member of the Carrabassett Valley Outdoor Association, established about five years ago, which now numbers more than 200 members. He was also a longtime member of Sugarloaf Ski Club, as well as a member of the Carrabassett Valley Planning Board since 1999, which he had chaired since 2003.

He also co-chaired the 2003 Carrabassett Valley Comprehensive Plan Update, a major undertaking that began in 2001, and concluded with its report in the spring of 2004.

He was the town historian, and spent considerable time researching a book he hoped to write. Some of his research has been incorporated into the town’s web site. Since 1999, he had served the town as a ballot and election clerk, and had been a member of the town’s budget committee since 1998. He was also a member of the Carrabassett Valley Sanitary District Board of Trustees, elected in 2003.

The admiration and friendship many “Sugarloafers” felt for Dick was summed up in a letter by Al Webster which appeared in the Irregular shortly after Dick’s condition was diagnosed. It reads as follows:

“We miss you, Dick Crommett, we miss your attention to matters of the Town of Carrabassett Valley and want you to know that we are grateful for the public service you have given us over the years, your unselfish dedication to serving on the Budget Committee, to representing us on the Planning Board, your attendance to the ballots at voting time. We especially appreciate your many hours of arduous effort in developing the town’s Comprehensive Plan, serving as co-chair of that hard-working group.

“The many years of research you have done toward writing the history of Carrabassett Valley will earn you the thanks not only of your neighbors, but of future generations of Carrabassett residents. We thank you for carrying this project to near completion. We’ll see it through.

“Cribbage at Tufulio’s and elsewhere around the valley isn’t the same without you, in fact, this whole community isn’t the same. We are thinking of you in every corner, at every hour.”

-Your friends of Carrabasset Valley

Survivors include his son, Paul A. Crommett, of Brewer; a sister, Lynn Cordtsen and her husband, Clyde, of Ellington, Conn.; their children, Candace Thomas and her husband Michael of South Monmouth; Brad Cordtsen of Ellington, Conn.; several nieces and nephews; a grand-niece and two grand-nephews; and his ex-wife and dear friend, Rebecca M. Crommett, of Augusta.

He was predeceased by a son, David Benjamin Crommett, in 1998.

Copy the Story Link