Gustav Norwood, a public power administrator who was a “staunch believer that electricity is a public service, not a commodity,’” stayed a multitasking optimist to the end. When placed on oxygen tanks a few years before his death, Norwood quipped, “The immediate effect of these tanks is more oxygen to my brain, and my productivity doubled,” an obituary in the Columbian reports. He used the added productivity well. A historian and author of nine books who once wrote speeches for Harry Truman, as well as a long-time public servant at the Northwest Public Power Association, Norwood completed his last book, an autobiography, in 2005.

Born Gus Smeja on an unelectrified farm in Chicago, he let his wife-to-be, Jean, pick a new last name, one that would be a bit easier on the tongue for those around him. Norwood himself never took things easy. A graduate of the Naval Academy, he won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, only to enter World War II instead. There, says a death notice in the Oregonian, he played the role of a veritable hero, earning eight battle stars for his role in the battles of Okinawa and Iwo Jima and for his rescue of a fellow crewmate from their sinking destroyer.

Once he returned home, Norwood took advantage of the G.I. Bill to head to Harvard for a Master’s in Public Administration. From there it was onto stints at the Alaska Power Administration and the Atomic Energy commission, before settling into later roles as historian and director of the Clark County Historical Museum.

Norwood died May 2 at his home in Vancouver, Washington.