ETNA, NH — Wayne Nils Tobiasson was born on April 1, 1939 and passed away on August 14, 2020
Wayne grew up in Belmont, Massachusetts, the elder of two boys. Wayne studied Civil Engineering at Northeastern University (BSCE 1961) and Dartmouth College’s Thayer School (MEng 1974). He first came to work in Hanover in 1958 as an undergraduate, eventually moving permanently and working at the US Army Corps of Engineers: Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL). He retired from a rewarding 39-year career with CRREL in 1997 and continued to consult on specialty topics and provide national contributions up until his death. His work took him across the US and internationally to Scandinavia, Greenland, and the South Pole. He and a team came up with a creative way to move a 3300-ton DEW Line Ice Cap early warning radar station building across snow to improve the structures’ foundations. He helped compile a team to identify and repair a structural defect with the geodesic dome that sits on the South Pole. He was instrumental in the national snow load research and standards design for which he received many accolades including US Army Corps of Engineers “Engineer of the Year” in 1992. He attributed his interest and success to key mentors at CRREL and several professional organizations he worked with throughout his career.
Wayne married Elizabeth Allen in 1966 and together they raised three daughters who he taught to wield an axe, sing sea shanties, explore the wilderness from the white mountains to the Chilkoot Pass in Alaska, and to pay attention to “the details.” He attributed much of the joy in his lifetime to having Elizabeth by his side, combining their creative skills to improve the home, the community, and the world.
He was an engineer who thought carefully through technical requirements all while producing elegant and artistic outcomes that often tucked the engineering out of the way. He designed and, with Elizabeth and family members, built a cherished family home in Etna that emerged from the blasted granite of New Hampshire. Over the years they formed the excavated rock into winding graceful stone walls that welcomed family and friends to a house of creative angles with sweeping views across the Connecticut River Valley. The custom three-story home built around a central stone chimney and fireplaces with its steady stream of modifications held adventures aplenty for his three daughters and later their own families to enjoy. While Wayne loved the Etna house and the project of constructing with his own hands, the community and the people he met and journeyed with were what he valued most. Neighbors regularly lent a hand to one another, working to make the earth and neighborhood a more hospitable place. He enjoyed learning about how others performed their professions: being gifted with the pen or the scalpel or the Kubota.
Wayne always loved the sea and the Maine coast with its pink granite, tall straight spruce, soaring ospreys, and historic schooners on the horizon. Wayne’s cabin in Brooklin, Maine was his place of true joy. He designed and constructed it to work functionally with the beautiful coastal surroundings, including a large round window offering a view out to the boat-filled Center Harbor.
Wayne succumbed to lung cancer though he never smoked. He valued science and innovation – including the medical therapies that extended his life – and appreciated the thoughtful care he received from his Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center team. Wayne is survived by his wife Elizabeth, their three daughters and their families: Wendy Tobiasson (Raoul Wertz, Brennan, Niles), Becky Tobiasson (Steven Dexter, Heather, Zachary), Kirstin Tobiasson (David Swayze). We will celebrate his life in an in-person way in a post-COVID world. If you would like to honor Wayne, please consider a gift to Maine Island Trails or your favorite charity. Remembrances at: mykeeper.com/profile/WayneTobiasson
Wayne’s heartfelt wish: “Wayne hopes that those who knew him will remember him as that 6’10”, left-handed April Fool who tried hard to follow the Golden Rule.”