WILLIAMSBURG—Blaine Liner passed away on June 11, 2025, in Williamsburg. He was preceded in death by his parents, Scott Dewey and Agnes Rule Liner; and a brother, Floyd Dewey Liner.
Blaine started life on a modest farm outside of Little Axe, Oklahoma, where his mother was principal and sole teacher in a one-room schoolhouse. After high school he joined the U.S. Navy with several of his classmates at the end of the Korean War. Among other skills taught him in the Navy were opening safes and precision instrument management. After his stint with the Navy, he enrolled at the University of Oklahoma.
His college summers included work as a roughneck for the Imperial Oil Company, as a choker setter for the Coquille Valley Lumber Company in Oregon and as a canal tender for the Imperial Irrigation District in El Centro, California. After graduation, he worked in the zoning division for the City of Chicago, while Nan was in graduate school at Northwestern University. Blaine and Nan married in 1962 and moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where Blaine was a graduate student in the City and Regional Planning program at the University of North Carolina. During this period, Blaine worked as an aide to then Governor Terry Sanford on special projects.
Following graduate school, Blaine was hired by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller as a special aide, including speech writing. He left New York to become director of research at Spindletop in Lexington, Kentucky. This was followed by a return to North Carolina and a faculty appointment at Duke University. In 1976, he became the first full-time Loeb Fellow at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.
Blaine subsequently became executive director of the Southern Growth Policies Board at the Research Triangle Park. In 1986, he became the founding director of the State Policy Center at the Urban Institute, a public policy research institute in Washington, D.C. He also served on the executive committee of the Lincoln Institute and Foundation headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Blaine was an avid sailor and enjoyed the outdoors. He introduced his family to state parks and encouraged exploration from their mountain cabin in Celo, North Carolina. He also began a lifelong sailing career with Nan and the boys that involved frequent tours along the Atlantic Coast, the Chesapeake Bay and the Caribbean. He ultimately became commodore of the Rappahannock River Yacht Club.
Blaine is survived by his wife, Nan, of 63 years; and their three sons and families, Doug and Renata Garcia-Menacho of Lima, Peru; Mark and Dana Paulson of Mahtomedi, Minnesota; and Don and Devon of Reedville; and his sister-in-law, Zola Liner of Lodi, California. Their seven grandchildren include Dylan Liner, Sophie Liner, Tara Liner Billingham, Anika Liner, Greta Liner, Trenton Liner and Kelsey Liner.
Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.NelsenWilliamsburg.com.
