Fritz Casselman

Fritz Casselman loved people.

He loved singing with them. He loved sailing with them. He loved gathering with them afterwards to talk about all the singing and sailing they had just done together.

He loved telling stories to them, planning parties for them and dressing up in goofy costumes to stick stickers on their faces in Boston's annual First Night procession. And when, late in his life, illness prevented him from doing those things, he loved simply being around them.

He died on Tuesday, Sept. 16, surrounded by the people he loved most. He was 76.

He was a leader in every community he was a part of. In the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, where he lived for nearly 50 years, he helped forge common ground between residents, businesses and developers in his years on the board of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay.

In the Cape Cod village of Cataumet, Mass., where he spent summers since boyhood, he helped revive and lead the Cataumet Club's biennial clambake, delighting in the way people came together to collect the seaweed, place the rocks and tend the fire. The community effort mattered more than the meal.

In his personal life, he was a devoted husband, father, grandfather and friend, with a loud laugh and a love of a good story. In his professional life, he had a lawyer's love of argument, but not for its own sake - his colleagues, in both his business and volunteer work, noted his focus on finding solutions, and his willingness to listen to the other side in any dispute.

Frederick Voss Casselman - known to all but telemarketers as Fritz - was born Aug. 25, 1949, the youngest of four children. He grew up in Newton, Mass., in a home with high expectations and a social conscience. His father, Robert Crozer Casselman, was an executive at Polaroid Corp. His mother, Dorothy Voss Casselman, was an active volunteer for Newton-Wellesley Hospital and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

He attended Belmont Hill School and was on track to go on to Harvard until his investigative reporting for the school newspaper turned up a story that the school administration considered inconvenient. The headmaster warned him that if he published the article, his Harvard plans were in jeopardy; he published it anyway, and went to the University of Wisconsin.

At Wisconsin, he helped lead anti-war protests, wrote a string quartet, and began dating a young Englishwoman, Susan Ashbrook. They married on his 24th birthday and raised two sons, Ben and Peter, in Boston and Cataumet.

He considered a career in politics, helping to run campaigns while theoretically attending law school at Boston University. Law school went better than the campaigns, and he ended up spending the early part of his career as a lawyer, first as chief counsel of the state Labor Relations Commission and then as a partner at Bromberg Sunstein & Casselman. He later shifted his focus to biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, working in business development for various companies. Late in his career, he worked for the Clinton Foundation's HIV/AIDS initiative, using his industry expertise to help make antiretroviral drugs affordable in developing nations.

But, other than his family, he was perhaps most proud of his community activities. Besides his work at NABB and the Cataumet Club, he was a director of the Esplanade Association, where he took particular pride in the role he played in the development of the Frances Appleton pedestrian bridge. He also served as a board member at the Learning Project Elementary School, as a member of the Institutional Review Board at Massachusetts General Hospital and as co-chair of the Citizens' Advisory Committee for air-rights development projects over the Massachusetts Turnpike.

A lifelong music lover, he sang for years with Chorus Pro Musica, performing around the Boston area and beyond, including at Carnegie Hall. But he was just as happy strumming the washtub bass he made so that he could join jam sessions after Catboat races.

A skilled sailor, he competed in the famed Newport-to-Bermuda race and the less famous Cold Turkey Regatta (a surprisingly competitive set of Beetle Cat races formerly held on the day after Thanksgiving). But his favorite days on the water were the ones with no destination at all, just a warm breeze and a rising tide. He would come back to the harbor under full sail, barreling toward the beach before making a perfect dock landing, with the whole community watching from the beach.

He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Susan Ashbrook; his sons and their partners, Ben (Erin) and Peter (Erica); and a granddaughter, Vivian, who knew him as "Bompi." He is also survived by his brother, Ted, sister, Margery Connor, and numerous nieces and nephews. Another brother, Carl, died in 2013.

In lieu of flowers, donations in his honor may be made to Chorus Pro Musica (https://choruspromusica.org/) or the Women's Lunch Place (https://womenslunchplace.org/).