Charles Burton Ford Jr., 95, engineer

Charles Burton Ford Jr., 95, of Queenstown, Md., an engineer, company president, and boating-safety advocate, died Thursday, Aug. 23, at Rose Tree Place in Media.

After serving in the Army during World War II, Mr. Ford joined James M. Castle Inc., a fire-protection engineering company in Philadelphia. The firm had been founded by his father, Charles, and James M. Castle in 1913.

When his father died in 1946, Mr. Ford became president of the company.

He and Leah Bosler married in 1942 and raised a family in Moylan. They had met in Lansdowne, where they were both living. "Her car broke down and he fixed it," their son, Charles III, said.

In 1975, Mr. Ford turned the operations of James M. Castle Inc. over to his son and moved with his wife to Queenstown, on the Chester River.

The couple then spent a year aboard their 46-foot yacht, the Fordy Fathoms, circumnavigating the East Coast. They sailed to Canada and then to Lake Michigan and down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, where they helped rescue a boat off the coast of Florida.

It was not Mr. Ford's first rescue.

A lifelong boating enthusiast, he was an infant when he first sailed the Delaware River aboard his parents' yacht, the Wachusett.

In 1931, he was aboard the Wachusett with his father; his mother, Gertrude; and two of his father's employees, Elsie Moore and George Revak, when a freighter struck the yacht, cutting it in half.

Mr. Ford, then 14, rescued Moore, who was unconscious, and pulled her onto floating debris. He, his father, and Moore survived, but his mother and Revak died.

The tragic accident resulted in Mr. Ford's lifelong dedication to boating safety and the Coast Guard Auxiliary, his daughter, Kristine Herrick, said.

In the mid-1970s, he founded Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 19-03, in Kent Island, Md. He taught courses in boating safety, maintained Coast Guard Auxiliary Radio Station Queenstown, and published numerous articles on boating safety, his daughter said.

Mr. Ford was active with the Coast Guard Auxiliary into his 90s and sold his last boat, Square One, when he was 92.

He was honored by the Coast Guard and by the State of Maryland for his seamanship and boating-safety endeavors.

Mr. Ford graduated from Lansdowne High School and earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from what is now Drexel University.

He was commissioned in the Army in 1940 and served as safety officer at Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia and in the Army Ordnance Department in Chicago.

Besides his boating interests, he was an avid target shooter.

In addition to his son and daughter, Mr. Ford is survived by four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. His wife died in 1994.

A memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 15, at Old Wye Episcopal Church, 14114 Old Wye Mills Rd., Wye Mills, Md.

Donations may be made to the Coast Guard Auxiliary Association Inc., 9449 Watson Industrial Park, St. Louis, Mo., 63126.

at 215-854-2913 or sdowney@phillynews.com.