Arthur Jacob HaskellDecember 3, 2019Arthur J. Haskell, 93, of Oakland, California died peacefully at sunset Tuesday, December 3rd, surrounded by family.
Born in Newark, New Jersey, to Isidor Haskell, an immigrant from Latvia who put himself through Vanderbilt Medical School to become a doctor and Elena Greenbaum, a teacher, born in New Jersey who raised him and his rambunctious brothers after the death of his father.

He had a strong sense of ethics and democratic values in the face of unthinking bureaucracy. At the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1947 he invited speakers with differing viewpoints to address the class. To this end, he asked Stringfellow Barr, who urged creation of a world union after World War II to speak to the corps of cadets. After he was commissioned as an Ensign, he served three years at sea during the occupation of Japan and in the China theater where he was both an Engineering Officer and represented defendants in Courts-Martial proceedings on board the USS Helena. He then completed an advanced degree in Naval Construction and Engineering at MIT. Upon his resignation from the Navy as a LCDR supervising ship construction, he worked for D.K. Ludwig's National Bulk Carrier Company where through innovative engineering he repurposed main engines from surplus Navy stocks.

He joined Matson Navigation Company in 1964 as a project engineer and became an assistant manager of Engineering and Marine operations four years later. He rose to senior Vice President in charge of ship construction and operations. He encouraged creativity and resourcefulness by his staff using a management by walking around method before there was a name for this knowing that if he was to succeed those around him had to succeed as well. He was responsible for Matson hiring their first woman ship captain and woman engineer. He insisted on damage stability requirements in excess of what was required by law. Until he retired in 1992, he was instrumental in the the conversion and construction of over twenty-three Matson ships: the tugs Joe Sevier (1965), Sanford B. Dole (1967) and Maoi (1980); Inter-Island container barges and vessels including the Hawaiian Princess (1967) Haleakala (1984), Mauna Loa (1984), Islander (1988) and Waialeale (1991); jumboizing the Hawaiian Queen (1965) and Hawaiian Monarch (1965); acquisition and repurposing of the Trans Ontario (1974), Trans Oneida (1974), Trans Champlain (1974); conversion to container use of the Hawaiian Planter (1967) and Hawaiian Craftsman (1967) and the Ko Paa to bulk sugar (1971); and finally, the complete construction of the Hawaiian Princess (1978) Hawaiian Enterprise (1970), Hawaiian Progress (1970), S.T. Alexander (1970), H.P. Baldwin (1970), Lurline(1973), Matsonia(1975), Maui(1978), Kauai(1980), and the R.J. Pfeiffer(1992). He led the engineering effort to develop the design of the shipping containers and container cranes used in Hawaii and the Port of Oakland and the straddle carriers used to move shipping containers on the pier.

He was a member of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers for fifty years and President from 1989-1990. He continued to support scholarships for students through this organization. He also served on the American Bureau of Shipping rule making bodies.

In his spare time, he used his skills to restore and render seaworthy the Liberty ship Jeremiah O'Brien. It was the only Liberty ship able to travel under its own power and arrive in France for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the D-Day invasion. He also volunteered his skills to assure that the bare hulk of the Potomac vessel on the edge of the Oakland estuary became the seaworthy valid reconstruction of President Roosevelt's ship the USS Potomac and served as Co-President of the Board of the Oakland Association for the Preservation of the Presidential Yacht.

He is remembered by his family as a champion of the values of equality, human rights and community development. He became an advocate for those who were floundering in dealing with their insurance companies after the Oakland Hills fire disaster. He was an active member of both the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

A true gentleman, he was the rare person able to see what someone needed and offer help even if it was the thing least comfortable for him. He was generous with his time, though his patience depended upon the quality of the conversation. Friends said he was "a man of powerful intellect who never hid from the truth." Unlike others with his gifts, he didn't belittle or demean people who disagreed with him. He was quick to laugh and a terrific person with whom to work.

Beyond any of his professional accomplishments, Art will be remembered as a supportive father and husband, unpresuming, good-humored and imperturbable. He maintained that dinner together was a cherished time. He was straightforward in conversation but a careful listener. He didn't gloss over conflict but he expected his children to find ways to connect in spite of it. He took no interest in topics that caused division but steered discussion toward shared values and concrete actions in an emotionally mature way.

He was modest about his activities, but skillful. When traveling, through his ready laugh, he made new companions whose connections he maintained for years. He was a man of many passions from playing tennis to an evening at the Baroque Philharmonia. He was dedicated to the outdoors which took the form of snorkeling, skiing at Taos, New Mexico, hiking in the Sierras, and bicycling which led him on fondly remembered adventures around the world. In retirement, he began studying pastels which became another reason to go hiking in Yosemite. He recorded his many trips in this way and his work earned honors. But he also enjoyed quiet evenings reading and listening to Mozart with his cat, Mitzi.

He was preceded in death by his brothers Mark and Saul but remembered fondly by his nieces and nephews Ivan, Ian, Sharon and Gillian. He is deeply missed by his eldest son Vincent and his two children, Imani and Jacobi, his daughter Rocio and her husband Tadeus, and his youngest son Joaquin and his wife Dee. He took on a second family when he married Marge Gibson Haskell, former Vice-Mayor of Oakland. She and her children Sharon, married to Shawn Tyler and their daughter, Amélie and Debbie, and her husband Doug and their children, Braden and Ashley all profoundly mourn his death.

Donations may be sent in his name to Southern Poverty Law Center, https://donate.splcenter.org

Fair winds and following seas, shipmate you stand relieved, we have the watch.