Clifton P. Boutelle's Obituary
Clifton P. Boutelle passed from this life on May 24 in St. Helens, Oregon. He had resided at Spring Meadows Assisted Living for the past year and a half.
He moved to St. Helens from Nampa, Idaho to be near his daughter and son-in-law, Kathy and Terry King.
Last June, his family came from Ohio, California, Washington, and Oregon to celebrate his 100th birthday.
He was born June 27, 1913 in Beverly, Massachusetts to Katharine (Kearney) and Dr. Harry Boutelle, who died when Clifton was two. He was raised by his mother who was a nurse in several New England locations until settling in Hartford, Connecticut.
He graduated from Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1936 with a degree in printing management.
A skilled manager and problem solver, he enjoyed a career in the paper-making industry that spanned nearly six decades.
His career began in Westbrook, Maine at the S. D. Warren Co. and in 1948 he became manager of Alliance Paper Mills Ltd. in Georgetown, Ontario Canada, where he helped develop a special kind of coated paper, called cast-coating, which had a very shiny surface, similar to a glossy photograpic print and used in special printing applications.
In 1953 he was offered a job as a manager of the Gardner Board and Carton (later Diamond Gardner) plant in Lockland, Ohio and the family moved to nearby Wyoming, Ohio.
In 1960, he took a position with Weyerhauser in Longview, Washington and the family then moved there. He moved to Chicago in 1965 to be director of new product development and helped create coated cardborad containers used exclusively for milk, drinks and other liquids. He also established a plant in Des Plaines, Illinois that developed machinery to produce packaging for companies, like Oscar Meyer. He stayed with Weyerhauser until 1973.
He then joined join Crown Zellerbach and later moved to Portland, Oregon as an engineer in the specialty coating division at a plant in North Portland. He stayed with Crown-Zellerbach until he retired in 1978.
In 1979, he moved to Nampa, Idaho where he did some consulting work for several companies and helped set up paper-making machinery in several plants in the United States and Brazil.
He is survived by his sons Clifton Jr. (Judy) of Bowling Green, Ohio; Christopher (Lin) of Tacoma, Washington, William (Melissa) of Federal Way, Washington, and a daughter Katharine King (Terry) of St. Helens, Oregon and eleven grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Betty (Ralston) and second wife, Juanita (Dixon).
The family wishes to thank the staff and residents of Spring Meadows for all of their help and loving support while he lived there.
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