Jack and Lois Baird

A year after marrying in 1958, Jack and Lois Baird moved to Annadale. Little did the pair know at the time they would eventually play a major role in positively shaping a portion of the South Shore. The pair is pictured in this 2013 photo. Jack Baird, a native Staten Islander and a founder of Blue Heron Park, died at home on Sunday. (Staten Island Advance/Mark Stein)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Jack Baird, a native Staten Islander who helped create Blue Heron Park, died Sunday in his Annadale home. He was 85.

Born in Westerleigh, Mr. Baird enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1951.

In 1958, he met his future wife, Lois. They were married later that year. Together, they built their home in Annadale.

Mr. Baird was a New York City firefighter, working most of his career at Engine Co. 158 in Mariners Harbor.

AN INSEPARABLE COUPLE

The Bairds were inseparable. They are credited as significant cogs in creating Blue Heron Park, a 250-acre site that serves as an educational resource for youngsters and a green space for everyone.

In a 2013 interview with the Advance, Mr. Baird said, "It started in the 1970s. They were going to put three six-story apartments on 26 acres down [on Poillon Avenue], right across from the entrance of the park now. We said, 'You know, that doesn't go in our neighborhood.'"

The couple got 2,500 signatures on a petition and brought it to the Department of City Planning.

"They wouldn't accept it. Then, we got a group of neighbors and we started the Ad Hoc Committee to Save the Poillon Avenue Wetlands. Eventually, we met up with Jane Cleaver, chief of Park Lands with the city Parks Department, and in the 1970s until she retired, this was her homebase. So she assembled a whole bunch of land," Mr. Baird said.

"Lois and I went down to City Planning and filled in a whole bunch of maps with property that was in rem, and from here, going towards Great Kills to the west, we had enough to make up 154 acres in 1984, when the park was established," he added.

AN ADVENTURER

For his 80th birthday, Mr. Baird wanted to take a freefall parachute jump to celebrate the occasion, but his family was afraid he'd break a leg. So he went hang gliding instead.

"I flew in the Navy as an aerial photographer for four years, and I always had it in my mind that I wanted to jump at some point," he told the Advance in a 2011 interview.

Mr. Baird finally got his chance on Oct. 16, 2011 -- a day after he turned 80 -- when he climbed 2,000 feet above the Chesapeake and the Atlantic in Onancock, Va.

"It was breathtaking," he said.

Mr. Baird was also an avid photographer, a skilled woodworker, a former member of the Westerleights, and a Boy Scout leader.

He is survived by his wife, Lois, an Advance Woman of Achievement; two daughters, Kerry Baird and Allison Coughlan, and three granddaughters.

The funeral service will be Wednesday at 10 a.m. in Huguenot Reformed Church. Arrangements are being handled by the Casey McCallum Rice South Shore Funeral Home in Great Kills.