Norway – Hans Paulsen, 81, of Paris Hill, died Monday, April 9, at Stephens Memorial Hospital.

He was a retired mechanical engineer who spent much of his career in the sugar business, and later, the chemical industry. He was born Feb. 17, 1926, at the Hague, in the Netherlands, the son of Adolph B. C. Paulsen and Gesina F. Paulsen. At the time of his birth, the family was on leave from his father’s civil service duties as a controller of land management in the Dutch East Indies.

Mr. Paulsen’s early years were spent in Java. When the Japanese invaded in 1941, he was interned in a civilian prisoner of war camp along with 30,000 others. The camp was liberated by the British in 1945. Following World War II, and a brief stint in the Dutch Army, he returned to the Netherlands. Starting in 1948, he attended the Higher Technical Institute in the Netherlands, from which he received a Bachelor of Engineering degree. In 1952, he became the third generation of his family to serve in the East Indies, which by then had become Indonesia, an independent country. He was employed as an engineer on sugar estates until 1958. At that time, the Sukarno government ordered all Dutch nationals to leave the country.

His contact with the sugar business led him to a position in British Guiana for two and half years before emigrating to the United States. He was employed by Jack Frost Sugars of Long Island City, N.Y., and by Diamond Shamrock in New Jersey before joining Imperial Chemical Industries (I.C.I.), a British company with offices in Dighton, Mass. He retired from I.C.I. in 1984, the same year he moved to Paris Hill. His first wife, Neeltje van Pelt, died in 1979. He married Evamaria Witt in 1980.

He was a past chairman of the board of trustees of the Paris Utility District, on whose board he served for 15 years. He was a longtime member of the Paris Hill Country Club, serving a number of years as treasurer, and was a member of Pioneer Masonic Lodge of Somerset, Mass. For many years, he taught chairseating in Adult Education classes at Oxford Hills High School.

He is survived by his wife, Eva; sons, Hans C. and wife, Mitzila, of Oahu, Hawaii, and Richard A. and wife, Linda, of Canaan, N.H.; a daughter, Gesina Brooks and husband, Brian, of Cinnaminson, N.J.; and grandchildren, Sarah, Christopher and William Brooks, and Hans A. and Christopher Paulsen.

He was predeceased by a son, Willem in 1979.