R. Corwin, chief of pine barrens commission, dead at 56

When years of court battles over Suffolk's pine barrens resulted in a 1993 state law creating Long Island's 100,000-acre pine barren preserve, environmentalist Richard Amper said there was only one man both sides trusted to oversee the new sanctuary - Raymond Corwin.

But Corwin, the first and only executive director of the 17-year- old Central Pine Barrens Joint Planning & Policy Commission, died around 7 p.m. Monday while working at his Suffolk Water Authority office in Oakdale. He was 56.

The death of Corwin, a jogger and veteran hiker, shocked those who knew him. "I feel so terrible," said state Sen. Kenneth LaValle (R-Port Jefferson), who often saw Corwin running in his local neighborhood and said his knowledge of the pine barrens will never be replaced.

"You could never find a more decent human being," LaValle, a sponsor of the landmark pine barrens legislation. "And because of his disposition he was able to breach the huge ideological gap. . . . Everyone trusted him."

In his post, Corwin was originally responsible for developing a management plan for protecting the 50,000 acres in the pine barrens core, which cannot be built on, and enforcing rules of that plan and state legislation for regulating development in the 47,000-acre compatible growth area.

Just this past February, Corwin completed the first update of the original pine barrens plan.

"He was a walking encyclopedia of all the deals, all the history and the very complicated legislation," said Robert Wieboldt, former executive director of the Long Island Builders Institute. "He was the guy who kept it going and adjudicated a lot of problems."

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, also a sponsor of the legislation, called Corwin "the glue that kept fragile pieces in place" so the pine barrens initiative became "a national model" in balancing environmental and economic needs. "Ray was very much the quiet force that knitted it all together," he said.

Before taking the helm of the pine barrens commission, Corwin had worked as a computer scientist and mathematician for Grumman Corp.

He was also active for more than 25 years in the Long Island Greenbelt Trail Conference, a hiking and preservation group, and was the group's vice president at the time of his death.

Amper, executive director of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society, recalled that when his group honored Corwin for his outstanding contribution to the environment in 1994, it did a video using the rock song "Wild Thing" as background. "He was so exact and precise in his administration, that 'wild thing" is the last thing you would call him," Amper said. "He was no crazy tree hugger - he was professional and evenhanded and that was his great gift."

Officials Tuesday night said funeral arrangements were not yet complete.