William H. Ryan 1937 – 2020 BRUNSWICK – William Hanley Ryan died at home on Nov. 7, 2020 in Brunswick. He was born in White Plains, N.Y.; his family soon relocated to the state of Washington in the Seattle/Puget Sound area. He attended St. Joseph School and the Lakeside School in Seattle for his elementary and secondary education, where he developed a lifelong passion for learning, particularly history, literature and philosophy. He attended the University of Washington, Santa Clara University and Seattle University, from which he received his B.A. and MBA degrees. He served as a naval officer during the Vietnam era in the Third and Seventh Fleets, and earned a prize medal for his essay “My Freedoms and My Responsibilities”. After his military service, Bill managed both for-profit and non-profit organizations in the Seattle area, including enterprises engaged in foreign trade, real estate investments, charitable giving and manufacturing. He was recruited by the City of Portland, Ore. as its ombudsman for business retention and economic development. On completion of this assignment, he relocated to Mount Vernon, Washington, where he was the first appointed executive director of the Port of Skagit County and then, for the next decade, executive director of the Skagit System Cooperative, a non-profit fisheries and environmental management consortium. In the mid 1990s he moved to New England, first to Boston and then to Brunswick, when his wife was named director of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. Bill was active in financial and accounting management for several businesses up and down the Maine Coast, where he would have preferred to spend his time on his sailboat “The Ivy Crown”. In retirement he volunteered at College Guild, providing correspondence courses in writing and poetry to incarcerated persons, and with the Friends of Curtis Memorial Library. Bill could build anything with his hands, and did, from drystone walls, to a complete house, to sturdy and elegant pieces of furniture. He would have loved to take his avocation for landscaping and gardening to a professional level. He was comfortable around horses, both in the stalls and on their backs, had a smooth tennis backhand and a deep knowledge of Irish history that was exceeded only by his pride in his ancestry. A discerning reader, writer (of fiction, non-fiction and published poetry), and a passionate lover of music from classical to jazz, his motivating credo was “Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well”. He is survived by his wife, Katy Kline; his children, Leslie Ryan (David Anderson), Gigi Gilman (Tom), Wim Ryan (Catia), and Connor Ryan (Alyssa), stepchildren, Ethan Kline (Sarah) and Chloe Kline (Kareem Roustom); and eight grandchildren. He leaves numerous nieces and nephews, his sisters’ children; and many lifelong friends. He was predeceased by his parents, Marion and William McKinley Ryan; his sisters, Elaine and Kathleen; and his first wife, Valerie, the mother of his children. His family so appreciated the compassionate care of CHANS Hospice. Memorial events will be organized in the Seattle and Brunswick areas when it is once again safe to gather. If you are interested in a memorial gift in Bill’s honor consider Long Live the Kings Foundation (which he founded in the northwest to rebuild and sustain the wild salmon population: https://lltk.org/donate/ ), College Guild P.O. Box 696 Brunswick, ME 04011 or Friends of Curtis Memorial Library, Brunswick


Share your condolences, kind words and remembrances below. You must be logged into the website to comment. Subscribers, please login. Not a subscriber? Register to comment for free or subscribe to support our work.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.