It is with profound sadness that we announce that George G. (Skip) Gray, Jr., 80, went to be with our Lord on Thursday, February 19, 2026. He leaves behind his loving wife of 21 years and friend for 55, Jill R. Simmons. They were residents of Bath, NH, a place that he loved very much. His life was defined by his love of this country and service to others. He died suddenly in the arms of his wife three days after becoming the happiest man alive due to finally being able to get a hip replacement to relieve the agonizing pain that kept him housebound for two years.

Skip (if you called him George, he probably wouldn’t even turn around!) was born in Wareham, MA to Priscilla Beaton Gray and George G. Gray, Sr, who both have pre-deceased him, the youngest of three children. The family lived in Marion where he went to Tabor Academy. He left Tabor at the beginning of his junior year, without telling his parents, and signed up for the new Old Rochester Regional High School because they were going to have a football team. He ultimately became the team captain. He is survived by his brother Spencer Gray, Sr., of East Providence, Rhode Island, and his sister Patricia Gray Feidt ofIpswich, Massachusetts.

Early on he worked for the Sippican Corporation summers alongside his father and where he got his nickname. After High School he went to the Franklin Institute in Boston where he studied Automotive Engineering. As those who know him well, he had a brilliant mind for engineering and solving problems, being able to think outside the box. He first went to work for Mattel Toy makers in California, mainly because he could continue his lifelong love of surfing and skiing. He eventually returned to the right-hand coast and went to work for RaytheonSubmarine Signal Division in Rhode Island. Simultaneously, he became a member of the Marion Police Department for whom he worked for 11 years, part time, (40+ hours a week). That was where, in 1971, he first met his eventual wife, but that marriage wouldn’t come until some 33 years later. The Marion and Mattapoisett officers would come to New Bedford to help the NB narcotics squad, including his future wife Jill, with drug buys, search warrants, and vice crimes, since they were unknowns to the local population.

Eventually the work at Raytheon became more global and he built up millions of miles on airlines to resolve issues and upgrade the US Navy’s submarines’ sonar systems, which he had designed and troubleshot. He acquired several patents for the items that he invented. He always said that if email and jpegs existed in those early days, he would never have been able to take skiing vacations, accompanied by his friends for whom he bought the tickets, with those miles that he built up. He once left Boston for Guam, solved the problem, and took the same aircraft back that brought him there. A very long nearly 2-day flight!

His biggest success came from a huge problem with our submarines in the Pacific basin. The subs were showing up with holes in the protective layer surrounding the sonar. The Pentagon was very concerned that our adversaries had found a way to compromise our subs’ systems. It took two years of travelling around the world talking to experts in all different fields to find out that it was a little 2’ long shark that was mistaking the sub for a whale. Nicknamed a cookie cutter shark, it would stick its mouth to the target, suck it close, embed the row of teeth that are on one half of his jaw, then spin and cut out a round hole, hence the name cookie cutter! The entire story made it to Naval Proceedings and National Geographic. Eventually he was promoted to a position that only PhD’s received, but that was because of the expansiveness of hisknowledge and abilities, since he was working all the time and didn’t have time to actually get that degree!

In 1994 he was laid off from Raytheon, along with 2/3rds of the staff, since the Soviet Union had collapsed and the Cold War was over. At that time, Skip worked with a startup company that manufactured some very environmentally friendly units for septic systems, originally started in Europe. He was also working back in what he loved best, law enforcement, with the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Office.

He then became the harbormaster of Fairhaven MA. He spent a few years there doing harbor maintenance, search and rescue, and maritime law enforcement. He worked with the New Bedford Dive Team often. One time, the Whaling Museum was offered a Blue Whale that had been struck by a large freighter off the Port of Providence. It was flensed of its blubber and then placed in the waters of the harbor behind Popes Island to be finished off by the fish of the remaining edible parts. He continued the daily in and above water inspections with the dive team to ensure that it remained secure. That whale is hanging in the New Bedford Whaling Museum today with oil dripping from the bone in the area of what looks like the nose and that oil will continue to come out of the bone for at least another century.

Another time he was the first diver in the water for a car off the New Bedford/Fairhaven Bridge and pulled three young people out and brought them to the surface. Sadly, they all eventually died, mostly due to the heavy pollution in the harbor, but it was an extremely valiant effort.

He switched to the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office where he headed the Facilities Maintenance unit and was also a uniformed officer working with the Marine unit until 2001.

In 2002 he suddenly had a severe heart attack which led to open heart surgery and an end to working in law enforcement. He had met up his wife again back in 1991 and they had begam to work together, when not doing their “real” jobs, doing dive work. He had learned to dive and was fantastic at it. After the heart attack he rehabbed himself to get to the top of the fitness chart and go back to diving. He was always driven like that. They married in 2004.

Since that time, he enjoyed scuba diving, motorcycles, all his friends at Iron Horse Motorcycle Lodge in North Carolina and in the Florida Keys where he spent 18 winters, ending only when Hurricane Ian wiped out the place where we were going to live.His newest hobby was leather work and with his artistic talentmade some wonderful gifts, belts, vests, and bottle carriers for family and friends. He loved all his friends and Facebook became the lifeline for him to keep in touch with them all acrossthe country. He had so much fun with it.

He had no children but loved his nephews, Spencer Gray, Jr, of Woolwich, ME, and his wife Elizabeth, Sedgwick Gray and his wife Courtney Taylor of Jamestown, RI and Tad Keach and his wife Pamela of Ipswich, MA, as well as his niece, Noelle Vicedomine and her husband James of Hampton, NH. He also had several great nieces and nephews, and is godfather to great niece Sarah Elizabeth Gray of Sewanee, TN.

Very special thanks go to Dr. Katherine L. Mistretta of Dartmouth Hitchcock Orthopaedics, his surgeon, and the one who believed in him and helped him the most to get the surgery he needed desperately for the indescribable pain he was in for over two years that kept him housebound. Her skill and easy manner became the combination that made the surgery possible, and it worked.

Additionally, Dr. Alan Weinshel of New Bedford Cardiology, was his cardiologist since 2002 at the time of his first heart attack, His constant care and easy manner allowed Skip to come back and enjoy his life for an additional 24 years. He helped him get back after a second attack a few years after the first one, and the need for several stents beyond that, and Dr. Weinshel never gave up on him.

For the Woodsville NH Ambulance and Bath NH Fire, I have reserved my most heartfelt gratitude for the six medical personnel and the Fire Chief of Woodsville, Steven Robbins, for their dedication, skill, training, and hard work they put in for the over half hour fight to save Skip’s life. They all worked seamlessly together. While, in the end, they were unsuccessful, it was certainly not for the lack of trying or training. The Townsof Bath and Woodsville have every reason to be proud of all these personnel and should thank God they are the caretakers of these two towns.

God bless all these folks, and may He allow Skip to now rest in the arms of our Lord. We will meet again on the other side!

If you would like to honor or memorialize Skip in any way, please know that his favorite charity to support is the Free Will Baptist Church Children’s Home at 86 Academy Drive, Eldridge, Alabama, 35556. They do not accept federal or state funds because they are a bible-based church and, as a result, depend on the free will offerings of folks like yourselves.

A celebration of the life of Skip will take place in late spring or early summer. Notice will be sent as to when and where that will happen.