Frederic Pitre, 54, shipping executive

Frederic Pitre, who expanded the use of self-unloading ships and changed a world-wide industry, died Sunday, Oct. 1, of cancer. He was 54 years old, and had lived in Ridgefield for five years.
He was very smart,” his wife, Diane, said. “He had a quirky sense of humor. He was very unconventional, a very unconventional person. He wasn’t a straight thinker, he was more of a visionary.”
Mr. Pitre was born Sept. 11, 1946 in Bathurst, New Brunswick, Canada, a mining and paper town where his father worked in the paper mill. Mr. Pitre grew up there, and went to three colleges in Canada — St. Francis Xavier in Nova Scotia, Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and then the University of Toronto after he decided to specialize in engineering. He got his master’s of business administration through night classes at McGill University while working at the Bank of Montreal.
He then took a job with Canada Steamship Lines, beginning a 29-year career in the shipping industry. He was with Canada Steamship for 22 years, rising to the office of president.
“He changed the industry. He just brought it into the 20th Century,” said his wife. “The company itself was antiquated, he computerized it, and he made a lot of changes to the industry itself.”
He improved efficiency and saw the many possibilities of self-unloading ships, which are equipped with a boom and conveyer-belt and don’t not require sophisticated port facilities such as tractor cranes for unloading.
“You don’t need any dock facilities, you don’t need anyone on the dock. The ship can just come and put its boom over to the dock and it unloads itself,” Mrs. Pitre said.
He saw that “self-unloaders” could be used beyond the Great Lakes, in international shipping.
“In the Great Lakes they were unloading ships in six hours. In international shipping it was taking six days,” his wife said.
He also pioneered the idea of ship-to-ship self-unloading, sending out smaller vessels to take cargo from big carriers that had gone through the Panama Canal but were too deep for Canada’s St. Lawrence Seaway.
He received numerous awards for his service to the shipping industry, and traveled the world as a sought-after speaker at meetings and conferences.
In 1993 he founded his own company, Global Self-Unloaders, bought a ship and converted it to a self-unloader. He also did a lot of consulting and worked as broker, matching ships to cargos.
In 1995 he and his family moved to Ridgefield, closer to the New York-centered market. They lived first in Eleven Levels and later in the Ridgefield Knolls.
Later in his career he brought the self-unloading concept to third world countries that lacked developed port facilities.
Travels over his career took him to Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and South America.
In his rare free time, Mr. Pitre liked jog.
Beside his wife he is survived by two daughters, Amanda Bonneau of Toronto, Canada; a son and daughter in Ridgefield, Andrew and Allison Pitre; and his parents, Emile and Hermina Pitre of Bathurst.
Services will be in Bathurst, with a wake Thursday and a Mass of Christian Burial on Friday.
Contributions in his memory may be made to the American Cancer Society, or to a charity of one’s choice.