A longtime trustee and educator at Bar Harbor’s College of the Atlantic who was an early advocate for online education and using computer technology to enhance education has died.

Donald B. Straus was 91.

“Don was a true visionary,” Richard Borden, a professor and former academic dean at COA who knew Straus for nearly 30 years, said Tuesday. “He really had a capacity to see things ahead of a lot of other people. He was the first person I knew who used e-mail, the first person I knew who had a computer.”

Straus died Monday at his home, according to an obituary published Tuesday in the Bangor Daily News.

Steven Katona, one of COA’s founding faculty members and the college’s president from 1993 to 2006, said Straus recently had suffered a stroke.

“He was just one of the foremost champions of COA and of its mission,” Katona said of the small environmental college that specializes in human ecology. “He was absolutely dedicated to improving the human condition, as well as preserving nature. He was really committed to finding better ways for people to live in harmony.”

Despite an impressive family history steeped mainly in retail, Straus first made a name for himself in the public service sector as a negotiator and community planner and, later, in the academic world.

His grandfather Isidor Straus, a German immigrant, was one of the first owners of the New York Macy’s, a now famous landmark and sponsor of New York’s annual Thanksgiving Day parade. Isidor Straus also served briefly as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Isidor and his wife, Ida, died in the sinking of the Titanic after she apparently gave up her seat in a lifeboat so she could be with her husband.

Straus’ father, Percy Straus, was president of the flagship R.H. Macy’s department store in New York City for many years.

Donald Straus, who was born in New Jersey and grew up in New York, graduated from Harvard University in 1940 with a master’s degree in business administration. That same year, Straus married his wife, Elizabeth, and they remained together for 67 years until his death.

Among Straus’ notable executive titles were: president of the American Arbitration Association and executive vice president of the Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York. He also served as chair of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and was a trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Institute for Advanced Study.

For many years, Straus and his wife lived in New York City. They often spent summers at a home overlooking Somes Sound on Mount Desert Island.

When it came time to switch gears professionally, Straus looked to the environmental college nearby.

“The mission of the COA, which is understanding and improving the relationship between people and the environment, that was his own personal mission,” Katona said.

“He had a lifetime of work already in the area of negotiation and he brought that experience with him to COA,” Borden added.

An early advocate of online education and public referendums by computers and the Web, Straus taught an online course, “Democracy in the 21st Century,” for the online education organization Connected Education in the late 1980s and early ’90s.

Straus was involved with COA as a life trustee up until his death.

He and his wife shared a personal passion for the ocean and spent many hours on the water in their sailboat or a rowboat. They had three children.

“He and his wife always opened their home [in Somesville] as a place to welcome countless guests. They were a magnificent team,” Borden said.

A memorial service for Straus has not been announced, but Jordan-Fernald Funeral Homes will be making arrangements, according to his obituary.