BREWER – Former state Democratic Party chairman Paul Chretien was remembered by fellow Democrats as a longtime labor supporter and advocate for education.

Chretien, 67, died Feb. 17.

Chretien was a 1955 graduate of St. Dominic High School in Lewiston. He served four years in the U.S. Air Force and graduated from the University of Maine in 1963.

Chretien served as chairman of the Maine Democratic Party in the early 1970s under then-Gov. Ken Curtis. He worked for many years at the AFL-CIO as the community services liaison, developing property for senior housing projects in Madawaska, Augusta and Rockland.

Chretien worked for the alumni association of the University of Maine and was on the board of trustees for Unity College.

He was honored in 1979 by the National Association of Counties for training and youth rehabilitation programs to improve buildings used by the then-new Penobscot Job Corps Center.

Chretien was an avid golfer and Yankees fan. A Mass of Christian burial was celebrated at 10 a.m. Saturday at St. John’s Catholic Church on York Street in Bangor.