Hugh McKellar passed away peacefully, surrounded by family on March 24th, 2026 at Pen Bay Medical Center in Rockport after a period of declining health and complications from pneumonia. He was 76.

Born in Los Angeles on January 23, 1950 to Hugh Alexander McKellar and Marjorie Ann Norton, Hugh grew up in Pacific Palisades long before the coastal village earned its reputation as a hideaway for the rich and famous. He considered himself lucky to have enjoyed the area when it was still a true family neighborhood with working class people and a small town feel.

It was during his California days that he first fell in love with the ocean and by the mid 60s he and his two best friends had managed to gain access to Bixby and Hollister ranches on the then pristine and serene California coast. Those days, catching six-foot barrels in total isolation, remained the baseline for his happiest memories.

He spent a year at the University of Southern California before transferring to and graduating from UCLA with a degree in English in 1972. He described the time as "frighteningly tense" due to the very real possibility of being called up for the Vietnam War. After college, he spent time working in bookstores, and from there, he left his book job and his surfboard behind for what he called "the poetry of the working man", traveling across the country to work in a Pennsylvania steel mill. He described aspects of the job as a "vision of hell" that stayed with him forever, yet he also found in it a solidarity and empathy for this type of labor that greatly influenced his writing and his politics.

After that he lived briefly in Boston working for a publisher, but was frustrated that people cared more about their own egos than the poetry they were tasked with promoting. Another formative experience in the 1970s came from working on the first major state-commissioned survey of Maine’s coastal islands. For months, he and his good friend Steve Welch navigated the central and southern coast of Maine to log geology, flora, fauna, and human presence on more than 500 publicly owned islands.

When the survey was finished he stayed in Boothbay and took a job with the local newspaper while working on the side as a bartender. He loved the natural beauty and the wildlife of Maine but eventually sought out more reliable employment, leading him to Seattle to work as a technical writer for Boeing ("the company that puts the zero in being" Hugh had often joked). Soon after joining, he was identified for a secret project, but the day he obtained his security clearance, he decided he'd rather be back in Maine than working for the "military industrial complex". He and his former wife, Molly, returned to Maine permanently in 1982.

Professionally, Hugh was a talented writer, editor, and prolific reader, especially of poetry. From 1982 to 1995, he served as the Managing Editor of National Fisherman, covering the pivotal years following the Magnuson-Stevens Act. He also wrote for WoodenBoat and Professional Boatbuilder on the technical history of schooners and boat construction as well as Fishing Tackle Trade News, a former Downeast Magazine Publication. Later, as the Editor-in-Chief of KMWorld, Hugh brought a skeptical but humanistic eye to the burgeoning tech sector and field of Knowledge Management. While he had little patience for the 'solutions' of business software, he became a champion for the industry’s more meaningful core—redefining knowledge management not as a corporate application, but as a fundamental 'attitude' of human collaboration.

His daughters, Alison and Kristen, were born in 1984 and 1986, and while the marriage didn't last, Hugh and Molly continued a relationship of mutual respect the best they could, seeking help from counselors and focused on being the best parents they could be. His daughter, and later grandsons, were the central joy and purpose in Hugh's life and he frequently found inspiration in his role as a father that allowed him to rise above his fears and demons. Although he had a lifelong fear of heights, he even skydived alongside his daughter Kristen.

Hugh’s love for the ocean extended beyond surfing to boats of all kinds and, of course, fishing. After he and Molly separated, Hugh lived briefly in an apartment overlooking Rockport harbor where he spent countless hours with his daughters near the water’s edge, launching his boat, and telling stories about imaginary creatures lurking in the lime kilns. Soon after, Hugh purchased a home on Spruce Street in Camden, where he would spend the next thirty years. It was the type of neighborhood that families dream of; where cars were subordinate to skateboards – and anything else piloted by a child – and debts between neighbors were paid in chocolate chip cookies and borrowed screwdrivers.

Hugh was also an animal lover. Even though “Molly got the farm” in the divorce, Hugh wasn't far behind in the animal department and frequently indulged his daughters in their desire to bring home any animal who was looking for love, from chinchillas and chameleons to hamsters, gerbils, goldfish, cockatiels and even a python. The python became a Halloween favorite for neighborhood trick or treaters.

The world changed permanently for Hugh in August 2018 when his daughter Kristen Ann McKellar was killed by a reckless boater while swimming on Damariscotta Lake. An initial manslaughter indictment was quickly replaced when an incoming district attorney recast the charges as what Hugh and his family could only describe as a "slap on the wrist" through a deferred disposition'. The profound feeling of loss and injustice surrounding Kristen's death was a heavy weight that Hugh carried with him until his death.

Hugh was sensitive, generous, deeply witty, and often self-deprecating. He was a master of the English language and a highly skilled editor, but also a constant joker who knew everyone in town by name and always had a genuine interest in the details of their lives. One of his favorite quotes from Dave Berry, "You’re only young once, but never too old to be immature.” He joked endlessly and was especially comfortable and skilled engaging young children.

In addition to his silly side, he was also deeply philosophical and well read. He could quote philosophers and poets with ease and had an impressive memory. If asked to choose a favorite quote in a more serious tone, he would usually cite these lines by T.S. Eliot from Burnt Norton:

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.

Hugh was predeceased by his daughter Kristen; his mother, Marjorie; his father, Hugh; and his former wife, Molly McKellar, who died in 2021.

He is survived by his daughter Alison McKellar and her husband Vincent Jones; his grandsons, Colton and Mason; his sister, Robyn and husband Greg (Arthur); and their children Brant, Lindsay, and Peter.

A gathering to remember Hugh will be held April 25, at 3 p.m., at the First Congregational Church in Camden. All are welcome. Please consider sharing a story about Hugh at the gathering or with Alison, ahead of time, at alisonmckellar@gmail.com.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation in his memory to the Camden Public Library or Maine Coast Heritage Trust.