Alan Bentz

Stonington — Dr. Alan Paul Bentz, 91, of Stonington, passed away unexpectedly at home on Saturday, May 12, 2018.

Alan Bentz was born in Minneapolis, Minn., on April 1, 1927, as the son of Paul A. Bentz and Elizabeth (Blew) Bentz. In 1928 his father received an appointment from President Coolidge to codify the laws of the Panama Canal Zone, and the family moved there. Alan graduated from Balboa High School in 1944. He attended Penn State where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1947, followed by a master’s degree in organic chemistry from the University of Minnesota in 1949.

In 1947 he married Anne Hall Siebrecht. They moved to Severna Park, Md., in 1949 when he took up an assistant professorship at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. He left there to pursue a doctorate at Rutgers University in New Jersey, while working as a pharmaceutical process development chemist at American Cyanamid’s plant in Bound Brook, N.J. After obtaining his Ph.D. at Rutgers, he moved to American Cyanamid’s Research Laboratory in Stamford. There he worked on plastics and resins for packaging materials and on solid rocket propellants under an ARPA project.

In 1973, Alan obtained a position as a research chemist at the U.S. Coast Guard Research and Development Center in New London. He worked with a team on a multi-instrumental method for identifying oil spill sources. It was designed as a forensic method with multiple laboratories verifying the methodology under ASTM auspices. The key to its acceptance was a landmark court case in Lexington, Ky., in which his testimony enabled the evidence to be admitted in the first criminal case under the Clean Water Act. The verdict was upheld by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals and the Coast Guard established a testing laboratory that still operates and handles several hundred spills a year.

He subsequently moved to the marine engineering branch and began dealing with aircraft corrosion, the bane of sea rescues, when salt water under helicopter floorboards would short out the avionics systems. Following that, Dr. Bentz worked on marine diesel exhaust emissions from 42’ cutters up to the 600’ Navy LSDs.

Upon retirement in 1996, Bentz started teaching with Literacy Volunteers for several years. Later he continued his philatelic hobby in depth, primarily in aerophilately and Canal Zone materials. He was a life member of the Thames Stamp Club. He kept busy writing articles for the Canal Zone Study Group, the Air Post Journal, the Metropolitan Air Post Society and the Universal Ship Cancellation Society.

Mr. Bentz always had more projects ongoing than he had time. He said his perfect epitaph would be: “I’m not ready yet — there’s a lot more to do.”

He is survived by his wife, Anne, after 71 years of married life. Other survivors are sons, Brooks Bentz and wife, Stephanie, Drew Bentz and wife, Robin and Bryan Bentz and wife, Mary Ann and their children, Genevieve, George and Julia Bentz; and one great-grandson, Aidan.

Donations may be made to the Stonington Garden Club.