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Cranmer, 55, remembered for his work

Ted Cranmer
He was BC3 board member

A Slippery Rock native who served for years as the president of the Butler County Community College board of directors and had been acting as the mouthpiece of the group Deshon Woods Development LLC, died last week.

Friends and business partners of Ted Cranmer of Butler remembered him as a hardworking and dedicated BC3 board member, and a “brilliant” petroleum engineer.

Cranmer, 55, worked for years at Phillips Production Co. before founding his own company, Mount Chestnut Oil and Gas Development Corp. But his most recent work, with a group of investors who earlier this year purchased the Deshon Woods property at sheriff’s sale, put him in the spotlight regarding the future of the property. Cranmer had acted as the group’s spokesman as the investors sought to rezone the property and continued searching for a suitable tenant for the property, which is considered a desirable site for commercial development.

One investor in that group, D. Michael Hartley, worked with Cranmer for years on the board of BC3, where both men served as the board’s president. Hartley said their families became fast friends after the men met on the BC3 board in the 1980s, and he grew to know Cranmer as a “brilliant petroleum engineer ... and a successful well driller in Pennsylvania.”

“He (Cranmer) made valuable contributions to the board and the college. It’s a loss,” Hartley said. “Anyone that passes on at age 55, that’s way too early.”

Another friend of Cranmer’s who got to know him while serving at BC3, Jim Beck, called Cranmer a dedicated and fun-loving member of the community.

“He worked hard (and) he played hard,” Beck said. “The man was deeply devoted to his career, and was very devoted to the college, and loved live in a very meaningful way.”

BC3 wasn’t Cranmer’s alma mater — he graduated with a bachelor’s in petroleum engineering from West Virginia University before obtaining an associates degree in mathematics from BC3 — but Beck said Cranmer was dedicated to the college nonetheless.

“I do think it’s important to realize how much he loved BC3,” Beck said.

Cranmer also was a fixture at WVU, where he served on the school’s Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering Department’s Advisory Committee for two decades. The school, in a statement, celebrated Cranmer’s contributions.

“(Our) high international standing is due to the direction of the advisory committee members, especially from Ted Cranmer,” the statement reads, in part. “The WVU PAGE Department will sadly miss (his) expertise, contributions, and input.”

Hartley said that following Cranmer’s death it would be up to him and his son, Kent, to coordinate the Deshon Woods group’s efforts going forward.

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