Although you may never have heard his name, Harvey Picker, who died March 22 at his home in Camden at the age of 92, was well-known there and in scientific circles throughout the United States and the rest of the world. If you used to see the name “Picker” on an X-ray film, and when you see the name nowadays on an MRI or CT scan machine, that’s the same family.

Besides pioneering in the X-ray field, Mr. Picker won wide recognition as an educator, businessman and philanthropist.

With degrees from Colgate University and the Harvard Business School and after further studies at Oxford University, in 1938 he joined Picker X-ray Co., founded by his father, James Picker, in 1915. They sold and serviced X-ray equipment and film and developed field X-ray equipment that was parachuted to American troops in World War II. The Pickers afterward sent a check for $3 million to the U.S. treasurer, explaining that they did not want to profit from the war effort.

Harvey Picker headed the company for 25 years, leading it into new fields of cobalt therapy for cancer and nuclear imaging diagnostics and the use of ultrasound for ocean exploration, later adapted for medical imaging.

He returned to Colgate in 1971 as an adjunct faculty member and taught provocative courses including “The Social Content of Science and Technology” and “The Politics of Assassination.” In 1972, he was named dean of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He and his late wife, Jean, gave $5 million to Smith College, a liberal arts school for women, to start a new engineering department. She was a Smith graduate and a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

In 1982, Mr. Picker moved to Camden, where he owned and operated the Wayfarer Marine boatyard, helped found the Mid-Coast Forum in International Affairs and led in funding an expansion of the Camden Public Library.

He served on the Maine Health Care Finance Commission in 1989 and on the Blue Ribbon Commission to overhaul the Maine workers’ compensation commission. He was a founding board member of MEMIC, the Maine Employers Mutual Insurance Co.

Mr. Picker and his wife founded the Picker Institute, dedicated to “patient-centered care.” It designed patient survey forms used in many hospitals to improve the delivery of medical services.

Looking back on his many-sided career, he once observed that “identifying problems and solving them was the most fun a person could have other than sailing along the Maine coast on a sunny September afternoon.”

He never seemed to regret growing older. In fact, in his 90s, when someone would say, “You don’t look it,” he would reply in mock sternness: “Please don’t speak to me like that. It’s like telling an 8-year-old that he looks like a 4-year-old.”

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, May 24, in the Camden Amphitheater or, in case of inclement weather, in the Camden Opera House.