Norman Altstedter

Norman Altstedter of Greenport, former Air Force navigator, reporter, editor and public relations manager, died Dec. 21, 2011, in Greenport. He was 92.

Born in Brooklyn in 1919, Mr. Altstedter graduated with honors from the University of Toronto with a B.A. in modern history, after serving as managing editor of The Varsity, then a daily newspaper.

From 1940, he spent five years in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He saw action with a torpedo bomber squadron based in England and Scotland, did submarine patrol work from bases in Alaska and British Columbia, and flew air supply missions from bases in India to British troops fighting the Japanese in Burma. He attained the rank of Flying Officer.

Returning to Toronto in 1945, he rejoined The Canadian Press news agency where he had worked summers. He reported from Winnipeg, Vancouver and Regina, where he was Saskatchewan Bureau Chief. In 1947 The Canadian Press sent him to New York as correspondent at the United Nations, where he also reported occasionally for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

In 1953 he joined Shell Oil Company as a speechwriter in New York. He later served in New York and Houston as a corporate magazine editor, publications manager and corporate communications manager and, before retiring in 1993, as public relations manager in New York for Shell Oil and its parent company, the Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies. He moved to East Hampton in 1994 and Greenport in 2002.

He is survived by his companion, Marillyn B. Wilson of Greenport; his brother, Arthur, of Lethbridge, Canada; and his nieces, Toba Shapiro of Toronto, Beverly Shafran of Edmonton, and Enid Altstedter of Calgary, all in Canada. He was predeceased by his wife, Mary B. Ronay, in 1988.

No funeral service is planned.

This is a paid notice.