Thomas H. “Tuck” Maddux III, former Maryland secretary of economic development who later was the founder and president of American Stone Mix Co. and a longtime Greater Baltimore Medical Center board member, died of congestive heart failure Thursday at the Brightwood Retirement Community in Lutherville. He was 95.

“Tuck was a very talented businessman and just a fabulous individual,” said Jack “Jay” Griswold, former interim president of Washington College. “He was very creative and forward-thinking and a first-class individual in every way.”

Thomas Henderson Maddux III, son of Thomas H. Maddux Jr., a Virginia Department of Agriculture worker, and Ida Mae Schryver Maddux, a homemaker, was born in Henderson, Virginia.

He was raised on the family farm overlooking the Rappahannock River in Remington, Virginia, near the small town of Sumerduck.

The farm, which Mr. Maddux later sold to the State of Virginia in 1975, is now part of the Chester F. Phelps Wildlife Management Area.

Mr. Maddux was a student at Virginia Episcopal School in Lynchburg, where he had been captain of the varsity football team. He left school after completing his junior year and enlisted in the Navy during World War II.

“He was 17 and was sent to Memphis where he was trained to be a tail gunner on a Navy plane,” said his brother, Web Maddux, of Danville, Virginia. “The war ended and he was never shipped overseas or utilized any of his training, and then returned to prep school and finished his senior year.”

His son, Thomas H. Maddux IV of Ruxton, said: “Because he was from rural Virginia where they always had nicknames, his came from ‘Tommy Tucker sings for his supper,’ and that’s where he got the nickname of Tuck, which he used throughout his life.”

After graduating from Virginia Episcopal School, Mr. Maddux began his college studies at the University of Virginia, where he earned a bachelor’s degree.

He began his business career in 1951 in the advertising department of Black & Decker Corp., where he rose to the position of executive vice president for southern international affairs.

In this position, Mr. Maddux was responsible for the company’s operations in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Japan, Brazil and Southeast Asia.

“Just the process of stepping offshore is a bit awesome to some people who have never done it,” he explained in a 1985 interview with The Sun. “But my experience has been when you step offshore as a businessman, you continue to act as a businessman. You don’t start acting like a tourist.”

In 1975, Mr. Maddux left Black & Decker when he was named executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Easco Corp., a Baltimore-based tool manufacturer, that produced Sears Roebuck and Co.’s line of Craftsman tools.

Stepping down from Easco in 1984, he worked for a year as a self-employed business consultant before being appointed state secretary of economic and community development, or DECD, in 1985 by Gov. Harry R. Hughes.

At the time, he was serving as chairman of the Maryland Board of Higher Education and was on the governor’s Employment and Training Council.

Mr. Maddux succeeded the colorful and flamboyant Frank J. De Francis, who resigned from the economic and community development position after purchasing Laurel Park in a move to avoid any suggestion of a conflict of interest.

Mr. Maddux is “really a very good manager. ... He knows how to run things, to organize things, to pull things together,” Sheldon H. Knorr, who was the state’s commissioner of higher education, told The Washington Post at the time.

“I took Tom to Annapolis to meet Harry,” recalled Joseph M. Coale III, a writer, historian and former chief aide to Gov. Hughes, who had been a friend of Mr. Maddux.

“He was a Republican, but had a sense of balance and that’s why Harry appointed him to MEGA. He was no showboat or a bomb thrower and just had good common sense,” Mr. Coale said. “He really became an ultimate political asset to Harry. And when he spoke, he had something to say — it wasn’t just political babble.”

When the Maryland savings and loan scandal erupted in the mid-1980s, it proved that Gov. Hughes’ instincts in appointing him to DECD had been correct.

“He stayed with Harry all through theS & L mess and Tuck would go out and win people over,” Mr. Coale said. “He was really brilliant when it came to putting out hostile fires and handled it all with great aplomb.”

After leaving DECD in 1987, Mr. Maddux established and was president of American Stone Mix Co., which he operated until selling the business in 2002 and retiring.

Through the years, Mr. Maddux’s board memberships included the old Equitable Trust Co., Maryland Science Center, Hannah Moore Academy, St. Paul’s School, the Baltimore branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Maryland State Board of Education, Easco, Preston Trucking, Yorkridge-Calvert Bank, Ward Machinery Co., Schenuit Industries/Investments and Green Spring Valley Hunt Club.

He had served on the Washington College board for 20 years and GBMC’s for 35 years.

“Tuck was incredibly supportive of what we were trying to do at GBMC and he gave years of his time serving on committees and especially the finance committee. He embraced our vision for our patients and what we were trying to do,” said Dr. John B. Chessare, president and CEO of the Towson hospital.

“He was a fabulous supporter of me and I always turned to him for advice and he gave me advice. He knew and understood the difference between governance and management,” Dr. Chessare said. “Our colors are green and white, and I always joked that Tuck bled GBMC green.”

He added: “He knew what was important in life and even though he had earned the financial position to enjoy it, he never forgot where he came from and was always looking out for others.”

“Tuck was a real star and a mentor to me when he was on the Washington College board. He was dedicated to whatever he tackled and he dragged us through a rough patch,” Mr. Griswold said. “He knew how business and nonprofits worked and he always said, ‘No margin, no mission.’ He was a big believer in that and that you use your endowment actively.”

Mr. Maddux maintained homes in Boynton Beach, Florida, where he had lived for 15 years, and a summer home in Cotton Patch Hillsin Bethany Beach, Delaware.

He had been a golfer, skier and world traveler.

Clark Mackenzie had been a friend for 50 years. Both men were members of the Niblicks, a golfing group.

“Tick was a very modest,quiet terrificguy,” Mr. Mackenzie said. “He wasn’t the greatest golfer but was a great guy to play golf with and such a sportsman.”

Mr. Maddux’s wife of 55 years, the former Caroline Byrd Tall, a retired real estate agent, died in 2006.

A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. Monday in the chapel at St. Paul’s Schoo at 11152 Falls Road in Brooklandville.

In addition to his son and brother, Mr. Maddux is survived by two daughters, Jenny M. Washburne of Ruxton and Holly M. Maddux of Charleston, South Carolina; seven grandchildren; a great-grandson; and a special friend, Peggy Classen of Murray Hill. Another son, James Maddux, died in 1951.