OBIT/L.C. "Whitey" Heist, Retired President of Champion International.

STAMFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 19, 1999--L.C. Heist, who served as president and chief operating officer and a director of Champion International Corporation from 1987 to his retirement in 1996, died today in Stamford, Connecticut.

He was 67 and lived in Old Greenwich, Connecticut.

The cause was complications from lung cancer the family said.

Mr. Heist's career with Champion, a forest products company headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, spanned 39 years. Known as "Whitey" to friends and colleagues, he joined Champion building products as a trainee in 1957 and moved through successive positions in sales, marketing and operations planning. Elected an executive vice president in 1979, he served as head of pulp and paper manufacturing and managed the printing and writing business group. He was named president and chief operating officer and elected to the board of directors of the company in 1987.

Mr. Heist was a leader in industry affairs, serving as chairman of the National Council of the Paper Industry on Air and Stream Improvement, and on the boards of the Forest Industries Council on Taxation, the American Forestry Association, and the National Forest Products Association. He was also a member of the board of trustees of the Institute of Paper Science and Technology.

He served as a director of the Ryland Group, a homebuilding company based in Baltimore, Maryland, The Greenwich Bank and Trust, and as chairman of the board of The Lyman Farm, Inc. of Middlefield, Connecticut.

Mr. Heist was very active in community affairs in Southern Connecticut. The University of Connecticut, where he was a trustee, named him Businessman of the Year in 1996. As chairman of its Downstate Initiative, he was dedicated to opening a University of Connecticut branch in Stamford and was successful in gathering political and community support for this effort. Upon its completion, the University dedicated the L.C. Heist Park in his honor.

He chaired the board of directors of The Stamford Hospital and Stamford Hospital Health Systems and was a founding director of DRUGS DON'T WORK!, The Governor's Partnership to Prevent Substance Abuse in the Workplace. He was the former chairman of the Southwest Area Commerce & Industry Association of Connecticut, for which he was awarded the Walter Wheeler Leadership Award, and chairman of the Stamford United Way.

In Greenwich, he was instrumental in founding the Old Greenwich Riverside Community Center Lacrosse Program and served as an elder of the Presbyterian Church of Old Greenwich.

A native of Bridgeport, Connecticut, Mr. Heist was a graduate of the Northfield Mount Hermon School. He earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Yale University and a master's degree from the Yale Forestry School, where he served as a member of the advisory board. He served two years as a first lieutenant in the Marine Corps.

Mr. Heist is survived by his wife, Mary, his daughter, Jane Heist Gamber of New Canaan, Connecticut, and three sons, William, who lives in Trumbull, Connecticut, Peter, who lives in Dublin, Ireland, and Matthew, who lives in New York, New York and eight grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, January 23, 1999 at the First Presbyterian Church in Stamford at 11:00 a.m.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that contributions be made to the Stamford Health Foundation in memory of Whitey Heist; or the Northfield Mount Hermon School, Northfield, Massachusetts in care of the Whitey and Mary Heist Endowment Fund for Scholarship.