Richard T. Bracken, marketing executive

Richard T. Bracken, a retired sales and marketing executive who managed several plants, died Oct. 17 of complications from dementia at St. Elizabeth Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Violetville. The longtime Catonsville resident was 84.

Richard Townend Bracken, the son of Thomas Bracken, a printing company foreman, and his wife, Mary Wheatley Bracken, a secretary, was born in East Orange, New Jersey, and moved with his family to Baltimore in 1939.

He was a graduate of the old Robert E. Lee Accelerate Junior High School, otherwise known as School 49, in the 1200 block of Cathedral St. He was also a 1953 graduate of Polytechnic Institute, where he played varsity baseball and football.

Mr. Bracken also played for Gordon’s Stores, a sandlot baseball team, where one of his teammates was future Baseball Hall of Famer Al Kaline, who played 22 years in right field for the Detroit Tigers until retiring in 1974.

After graduating from high school, Mr. Bracken worked for Associated Consulting Engineers, helping survey the Baltimore Beltway, and served from 1956 to 1958 in the Army Quartermaster Corps.

In 1961, he earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, where he was a member of Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu honor societies. He obtained a master’s degree in1977 in business financial management from George Washington University in Washington.

Mr. Bracken was the manufacturing department manager and assistant plant manager from 1961 to 1964 at Procter & Gamble’s Locust Point plant. In 1964 he joined Enjay and Chevron Fibers in Odenton, where he managed a fleet of barges that sailed from Pensacola, Florida, to Puerto

Rico.

After a short stint as plant manager at Ametek in Odenton, he became CEO in 1984 of Industrial Scientific Protective Applications, now ISPA Coating Technologies Worldwide, in Southwest Baltimore.

From 1988 to 1994, he was the manager of electrical engineering at Environmental Elements Corp. The last two years of his professional career were spent as director of sales and marketing for Ketema’s fiber division in Odenton.

A resident of Catonsville for 52 years, Mr. Bracken coached Little League teams in Howard Park and for the Catonsville Recreation Council. He maintained interests in photography, woodworking, jazz, dancing and attending Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concerts. He was an international traveler.

He volunteered at the Catonsville Library, where he archived obituaries and photographs and was treasurer of the Friends of the Catonsville Library. Mr. Bracken, who was on the board of Central and Catonsville YMCA, was also a Junior Achievement adviser and active in the Boy Scouts.

He was a member of Mensa and was a member for 55 years of Sharon Lodge No. 182. He was also a 50-year member of Catonsville United Methodist Church, where he had been treasurer and a member of its administrative board.

A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Nov. 17 at his church, 6 Melvin Ave., Catonsville.

He is survived by his wife of 58 years, the former Carolyn Elizabeth Lynch; two daughters, Linda Bowman and Karen Higby, both of Catonsville; and six grandchildren.

—Frederick N. Rasmussen