KLOMAN ERASMUS HELM KLOMAN, JR. "Ras" Died on January 5, 2018 while residing at Heron Point in Chestertown, MD. He was 97 years young. He lived an extraordinary life - attending three Ivy League universities, serving in the OSS in World War II, marrying twice, raising three sons, working a full career as a corporate executive and government consultant, and having a full and busy retirement writing six travel books and pursuing a rewarding career as an artist. Although he always considered his life to be filled with lucky twists and turns, he had more of a hand in his fortuitous life plan than he would admit. Born in Baltimore, he graduated from Episcopal High School and attended Princeton University, becoming one of its most proud alumni. While at Princeton, he rowed bow man in the lightweight 1941 and 1942 crew and was unbeaten for two seasons. He joined the Army ROTC and graduated six months early to join the Allied forces in WWII. He was selected amongst his peers to join the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). He was sent to Harvard University to learn Russian. He served the remainder of the war in Algiers. At the end of the war, he returned home and went on to get his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in International Relations, writing a doctoral thesis entitled The Climate for Investment in Three Countries: Liberia, Ghana & Ivory Coast. Following his graduation from Penn, he moved to Washington, DC to work at various Washington agencies including the CIA, Department of State, and the Foreign Policy Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. After meeting Lisa Cresswell, they married and had three sons. He raised his boys to be active outdoorsmen and taught them the fundamentals of sports long before the age of football and soccer fathers with an emphasis on tennis, alpine skiing, sailing, ice skating and hiking. Education was vitally important and an outstanding college education was a required course. He pursued a variety of professional opportunities at IBM, AMAX, and The Diebold Group, but found his professional passion at the National Association of Public Admin- istration, a federally chartered organization providing advice to all levels of government, where he was a senior research associate between 1969 and 1985. He lived in Washington, DC from 1969 until 2002, when he relocated to Chestertown, MD to Heron Point. Ras approached each day with a purpose. Upon retiring, he shifted professional passions to focus on a new career as a world traveler, author and artist. He recognized the impact of the internet long before others in his generation, and proudly developed his own web site in the late 1990s. He began to study painting, in particular water color, and became proficient enough to exhibit his work in various shows in Washington, Baltimore and Maine. Between 1994 and 2005, he wrote and published six books. It was his writing that, as he said, "served as a foil enhancing his pursuit of art". He and his second wife, Suzanne Roosevelt, travelled to over four different continents. She, a gourmet cook, perfected recipes and these accompanied his book sketches, paintings and musings. His travel books took readers through Paris, Gascony and Burgundy. Other texts where more scholarly - a family genealogy and a recounting of the early days of the OSS (the precursor to the CIA). Their favorite haunts were Tenants Harbor, Maine and France. Always an optimist, Ras was a self-described "glass is half-full kind of guy". When his legs were no longer able to confidently support him and he became wheelchair bound in 2012, he remained busy and active, bustling back and forth to his art studio, never suffering with dampened spirits. He always spoke of ideas for a new "next book' as his creative spark remained very bright. Two of his sons predeceased him (Helm in 1980, age 26; Nick in 1990, age 34). He is survived by his wife, Sue; her two daughters, Nancy and Laura; and his youngest son Alec, his wife, Danielle and their two children, Storey and Wilfred. A memorial service will be held at Wesley Hall, Heron Point, Chestertown, MD on Sunday, January 7, 2018 at 1:30 p.m. A memorial service will be held at Wesley Hall, Heron Point, Chestertown, MD on Sunday, January 7, 2018 at 1:30 p.m.

Published in The Washington Post on Jan. 6, 2018.