Wilton businessman Robert Bass dies at 89

Maine has lost a prominent businessman and philanthropist.

Robert N. “Bunny” Bass recently died in Falmouth at the age of 89.

A Wilton native, Bass headed his family’s shoemaking business, GH Bass & Co., and was a founder of Sugarloaf Mountain Ski Club, which became Sugarloaf Mountain Corp., and served the ski resort as president during the first 12 years of its existence.

“He was a gentleman’s gentleman, smart, athletic, multi-faceted and community-minded,” said John Woodcock, the U.S. district judge based in Bangor. Woodcock was distantly related to Bass by marriage and through work at their mutual alma mater, Bowdoin College.

Bass served the Wilton-based shoemaking company in many capacities, including treasurer, president and chairman of the board until his retirement in 1978, when Bass was purchased by Chesebrough Ponds.

He had joined the company after World War II, in which he served as a gunnery officer in the Navy.

Before the war, he had attended Wilton schools, Deerfield Academy and Bowdoin College and earned a Master of Business Administration degree at Harvard Business School.

Bass also served on many boards and worked for many organizations.

He was inducted into the Maine Ski Hall of Fame in 2003.

Woodcock said Bass will be remembered in many ways, but the image he will remember most is of Bass on a sunny afternoon on the sideline of a soccer field at Bowdoin, wearing a Deerfield cap and watching a grandson play soccer.