Charles M. Easter Jr., a retired civil engineer whose career at Rummel, Klepper & Kahl consulting engineers spanned more than four decades, died Friday of a spinal infection at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson.

He was 70.

The son of Charles M. Easter, who worked in advertising with The Baltimore Sun for 43 years, and Doris Virginia Crocker Easter, a homemaker, Charles Metivier Easter Jr. was born in Hyannis, Mass., and moved with his family to Lochearn.

“His maternal grandfather, Luchlan MacLean Crocker, was the sheriff of Cape Cod and the Islands in the 1930s and 1940s,” wrote his daughter, Julie C. Easter, of McLean, Va., in a biographical profile of her father.

“He was also a direct descendant of General William Tecumseh Sherman, as well as Stephen Hopkins and Francis Cooke, both Mayflower passengers,” she wrote.

He was a 1964 graduate of Woodlawn High School, where he played soccer, basketball and baseball.

Mr. Easter attended Rutgers University for a year and played soccer, then earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1969 from the University of Maryland, College Park.

In 1977, he received a master's degree in business from what is now Loyola University Maryland.

He began his career at RK&K while a college intern and joined the firm in 1970. During his years there, he worked on such projects as the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, Carroll Creek Park in Frederick and the Washington Metro.

The former Sparks resident retired in 2011.

Mr. Easter played defensive line for the Baltimore Eagles, a semiprofessional football team, for two seasons in 1969-1970. For years, he was catcher on the engineering firm's fast-pitch softball team.

A resident of Brightview Mays Chapel Ridge in Timonium, Mr. Easter was an avid sports fan who followed college lacrosse as well as the Orioles and Ravens.

He also loved the water and studied Cape Cod history.

Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Ruck Towson Funeral Home, 1050 York Road.

In addition to his daughter, Mr. Easter is survived by his mother, Doris Virginia Crocker Easter of Marstons Mills, Mass.; a brother, Robert Sherman Easter of Cambridge; two sisters, Janet McLean Green of Frederickburg, Va., and Jacqueline Anne Easter of Marstons Mills; and two granddaughters. A son, John Charles Easter, died in 1998. A marriage ended in divorce.

—?Frederick N. Rasmussen