Roger Danforth Severance

Roger Danforth Severance worked long and hard to do good in this world. He endured seven years of pulmonary fibrosis with grace and humor. He died at home in Portland, Maine, on July 29, 2021 with his family by his side.

The consummate public servant, Roger served in the federal government for 40 years, first in the US Navy, and then developing and carrying out international trade policy. He served finally as Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asia and the Pacific in the International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Following his retirement from federal service, he founded and ran for 10 years Severance International, Inc., an international trade consultancy in Washington, DC.

Roger and his wife, Jane Hurd, moved to her family home in Boothbay Harbor, in his beloved Maine, in 2002. He delighted in sitting on the porch watching the harbor go by, reading or greeting friends who all enjoyed his wisdom, his dry wit and his charm. He and Jane traveled the world together visiting friends they had met in their respective international work. He organized a weekly tennis group for nearly 30 years. He enjoyed skiing with Jane, especially in Utah and in France, and kayaked happily in the Sheepscot River and the Belgrade Lakes. He loved running the Ocean Point 5K with his daughter, and he jogged on Portland’s Western Promenade until he was 80.

Roger was a devoted baseball fan, following Detroit as a child, later the Orioles (before DC had a team) and finally rejoicing in the successes of the Boston Red Sox. While he followed the Boston Bruins and New England Patriots, his winter passion was for years the usually triumphant University of Connecticut women’s basketball team.

Roger believed in giving back to his community. He volunteered at Samaritan Ministry of Greater Washington, an Episcopal outreach program that helped recently released prisoners write resumes and job applications. He served as the Senior Trustee of the Congregational Church of Boothbay Harbor and organized a men’s breakfast group there. He was a longtime volunteer at Portland Adult Education where he fostered the creation of a program to guide immigrants one-on-one through the process of becoming US citizens. The Portland School Board named him Outstanding Volunteer in 2014 in the Portland Public Schools.

Born in Buffalo, NY, August 20, 1933, the only child of the late Robert and Janet Danforth Severance, he enjoyed early magical summers at his family’s compound at Bay Beach, on the Canadian shore of Lake Erie. Roger’s father died when he was three, and he was sent to the Rectory School in Pomfret, Connecticut when he was nine. The payoff for tolerating 4 years of boarding school was summers at his beloved Pine Island Camp on Great Pond in the Belgrade Lakes in Maine. Later, Belgrade provided peaceful summers during annual trips home from diplomatic posts with his young family.

Roger graduated from the Nichols School in Buffalo and from Cornell University in 1955 where he majored in economics and history. He entered the US Navy Officer Candidate School, in Newport, RI in 1955 and was assigned to the staff of the Commander of the 7th Fleet in Yokosuka, Japan, and in support of the Taiwan Defense Command in Keelung Harbor, Taiwan.

While earning an MBA at the Bernard Baruch School of the City University of NY at night and working for a firm that traded precious metals, he visited offices in the U.S. Department of Commerce in Washington, DC. Fascinated by the work generated by committed officers there, he applied and soon entered the program that later was named the Presidential Management Internship. He moved US international trade policy forward in Eastern Europe, in India, in the Middle East and finally in China and other nations of East Asia and Oceania. While his children were young, Roger intermittently held Foreign Service positions in Tokyo, Japan and New Delhi, India, always returning to his home base at the Department of Commerce.

Roger is survived by his wife of 33 years, Jane N. Hurd of Portland, Maine; his children, John Severance and his wife Jill Baker of Cannon Beach, OR, and Dr. Emily Severance and her husband Matthew Garvey of Baltimore, MD; his cousin Carolyn Cooperman of Asheville, NC; his brother-in-law and sister-in-law J. Nicholas and Joan H. Hurd of Vero Beach, FL and Southport, ME and a loving extended family. Roger was predeceased by his parents and his former wife, Julia Winch Severance.

A service celebrating Roger’s life will take place at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, August 22, 2021, at the Congregational Church of Boothbay Harbor, ME, 125 Townsend Avenue, Boothbay Harbor, ME 04538

Contributions in memory of Roger Severance will be gladly received by the Congregational Church of Boothbay Harbor, 125 Townsend Avenue, Box 468, Boothbay Harbor, ME 04538; the Friends of Portland Adult Education, PO Box 3185, Portland, ME 04104 or the Hospice of Southern Maine through which Roger and his family received excellent and comforting care for nearly seven months.