ORONO, Maine — Well-known educator and media personality Richard C. “Dick” Hill died of metastatic prostate cancer Wednesday night at his home on College Avenue. He was 97.
Hill was professor emeritus of mechanical engineering and director emeritus of the Department of Industrial Cooperation at the University of Maine, where he taught for 46 years.
“Dick was the quintessential public research university professor — an exceptional educator, extraordinary innovator and visionary and ultimate citizen of the world, determined to make society better for all,” UMaine President Susan Hunter said Thursday in a statement. “He was one of the pillars of the UMaine College of Engineering, helping make it the outstanding program it is today.”
Recently, Hill was under hospice care at home, according to a previously published report.
“I visited with him in April, and he was as phenomenal as ever — engaged, challenging, thoughtful and humorous,” Hunter said. “Dick was a larger-than-life legend who influenced generations of UMaine students and made a difference in the lives of Maine citizens. His legacy will live on in the countless lives he touched and the good work he did. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and colleagues.”
Mohamad Musavi, associate dean of academics and research at UMaine’s College of Engineering, said Thursday in an email that Hill had mentored thousands of students “who are now shaping the engineering workforce in Maine and beyond.”
“His level of engineering knowledge, especially energy related matters, and his commanding voice to deliver his message was unprecedented,” Musavi said. “Dick was in touch with the college in the last several weeks, and his level of attention to details and voice was as strong as ever. We are sorry to have lost a true friend, colleague and leader.”
Donald Grant, a former student and colleague of Hill’s, said Hill’s ability to explain complicated thermodynamics principles and develop laboratory experiments to demonstrate those principles “was legendary.”
“When I was a student in Dick’s thermodynamics classes, some 60-plus years ago, he was an unconventional professor,” Grant said Thursday in an email. “He often sat on the desk using a 20-inch slide rule to make calculations with a greater degree of accuracy than any of us students could obtain.
“One of his favorite sayings as he introduced new theory and new equations was ‘embroider that on your pajamas,’’’ he continued. “I still have, on behalf of the mechanical engineering department, embroidered
pajamas the Class of 1957 presented to him at Christmastime in 1956. Those pajamas were given back to the department by Dick in about 2000.”
Each fall, the department sponsors an emeritus luncheon known to attendees as “a pajama party.”
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins also applauded Hill’s contributions to his field.
“Dick was an exceptional professor and a man of towering intellect,” she said. “His relentless pursuit of progress and his innovative spirit led him to patent a number of inventions. He also made invaluable contributions as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Energy, the state of Maine, utility providers and others.”
Hill’s outspoken opinions won him admirers and critics throughout his career, including during his popular stint as a regular morning commentator on Maine Public Radio in the 1980s, according to a profile published in May the Bangor Daily News. He also answered readers’ questions about energy in a BDN column in the mid-2000s.
But it was his deep, data-driven expertise and his zealous spirit of inquiry that kept him in the public eye, according to longtime friend and colleague Tom Gocze.
Gocze, 63, is the proprietor of American SolarTechnics in Searsport, a former columnist for the BDN and the longtime host of the energy and technology call-in show “ Hot and Cold” on radio station WVOM in Bangor. The three-hour weekly program began in 1989; until September 2015, Gocze’s co-host and frequent guest was Hill.
“He’s made energy technology easier for everyone to understand,” Gocze said earlier this year of his friend and mentor. “And he’s the kind of fun uncle you’d like to have who would always encourage you to try all kinds of goofy experiments.”
Hill was born and raised in Schenectady, New York. His mother, a former schoolteacher, was a stay-at-home mom. His father, a professional engineer, built a career at Westinghouse, pioneering new refrigeration technologies.
He graduated in 1941 from Syracuse University in New York with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.
Hill and his wife, Elizabeth, met when they both worked at General Electric in New York. They moved to Orono in 1946. In 1949, they moved into a contemporary ranch home on College Avenue, which Hill designed and built and where he lived until his death.
Hill’s wife died in 1999, after 53 years of marriage. Hill is survived by five children.
A reception for family and friends will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 14, at the Buchanan Alumni House at 160 College Ave. in Orono, according to Brookings-Smith’s Orono Chapel.
Those who wish may make gifts in Hill’s memory to the Maine Forest and Logging Museum, P.O. Box 104, Bradley, ME 04410 or the Bangor Area Visiting Nurses, Hospice of Eastern Maine, 885 Union St., Suite 220, Bangor, ME 04401.
BDN writers Meg Haskell and Dawn Gagnon contributed to this report.