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William A. Touchard Jr., former president of a Baltimore construction company who was a World War II veteran, died Friday of complications from heart disease at his Catonsville home. He was 87.
Mr. Touchard, the son of a Bethlehem Steel Corp. supervisor and a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised on West Lafayette Avenue.
After graduating from City College in 1941, he worked in the diesel locomotive shop of the Patapsco & Back River Railroad at Sparrows Point and at the Carr Lowery Glass Co.
Mr. Touchard enlisted in the Navy in 1943 and served as a machinist’s mate with the 69th Naval Construction Battalion, or Seabees, in Europe.
After being discharged in 1946, Mr. Touchard attended the University of Maryland and became a registered master plumber.
He worked for G.H. Schuman Inc. from 1947 until 1952, when he joined Poole & Kent, a mechanical contracting firm, as an estimator and project manager.
In 1968, he was promoted to executive vice president and in 1973 to president of Poole & Kent. He retired in 1988.
Mr. Touchard had been a director of the Mechanical Contractors Association of Maryland and had been chairman of the Plumbers Joint Journeymen Apprenticeship Training Committee, Local 48, from 1959 to 1995. He had also been an active member of the Building Congress & Exchange and the Engineering Society of Baltimore.
A Mason, he was a member of the Boumi Temple and Warren Lodge No. 51. He had also served on the board of the Presbyterian Home of Maryland.
Mr. Touchard raised cattle and Bashkir Curly horses at his 100-acre farm near Taneytown. He was an avid gardener and particularly fond of azaleas and magnolias.
His wife of 60 years, the former Katherine Georgine Bowers, died in 2007.
Mr. Touchard was a charter member of Chapelgate Presbyterian Church, 2600 Marriottsville Road, Marriottsville, where services were held Wednesday.
Surviving are a son, William T. Touchard of Ellicott City; two sisters, Evelyn Heiger of Sykesville and Marlene Middleton of Greektown; and two grandchildren.
fred.rasmussen@baltsun.com
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