M. Edward Skinner III, retired construction project manager and former marina owner, dies
M. Edward Skinner III, a retired construction project manager and former owner of an Eastern Shore marina who was an avid model railroader, died Monday at Gilchrist Center Towson of complications from a stroke. The Timonium resident was 86.
Maurice Edward Skinner III, son of M. Edward Skinner Jr., a financial adviser, and his wife, Helen Elderkin Skinner, was born in Baltimore and raised on Bellona Avenue and later Blythewood Road in Roland Park.
He was a 1953 graduate of Friends School and after attending a General Motors training program in Flint, Michigan, he enlisted in 1956 in the Navy and served aboard the destroyer tender USS Shenandoah and the fleet oiler USS Neosho as a yeoman first class, He was discharged in 1962.
Mr. Skinner, who never used his first name and was known as Ed or Edward, attended the Johns Hopkins University. He went to work for Consolidated Engineering Inc., where he learned construction from the ground up, and his first job was painting parking lot lines for Hecht. Co. department stores, family members said.
He later rose to become a project manager and some of the construction projects he was associated with include Mercy Medical Center, Maryland Casualty Co., and the Mercantile Safe Deposit & Trust Co. building at Hopkins Place.
After retiring in the 1970s, he and his wife purchased and operated Bates Marine Basin in Oxford in Talbot County for 18 years until selling the business in the late 1980s.
He enjoyed spending summers at a family home in Arnold on the Magothy River and sailing on the Chesapeake Bay. He captained the family sailboat in the Annapolis-Bermuda Race in 1978, 1980 and 1982. He was a member of the Annapolis Yacht Club.
In 1967, he and his wife designed and built their home on Chapel Ridge Road in Timonium. He was a model railroader and had designed and constructed a large elaborate Lionel O-Gauge layout, which he installed in the basement of his home.
Mr. Skinner was a member of the Baltimore Country Club where he enjoyed bowling.
His wife of 58 years, the former Patricia O’Connor, died in 2017.
Services are private with interment in Green Mount Cemetery.
Mr. Skinner is survived by his son, M. Edward Skinner IV of Falls Church, Virginia; a daughter, Melinda Skinner Littell of Arnold; and four grandchildren.
