Ken Stubbings, the Canadian civil servant who helped Bermuda achieve the "seamless" airport transition from the US Navy in 1995, has died at his Vancouver Island home. He was 69.

Mr. Stubbings died on Thursday after a short illness from cancer.

Mr. Stubbings was the quintessential behind-the-scenes manager who helped Bermuda triumph in one of the most demanding technical and management challenges to confront the Island - the take-over of airport operations from a standing start in 14 months.

"A lot of people deserve credit for the military bases transition, but I don't think anyone would quibble with the fact that Ken Stubbings was the man on the ground and in the trenches for Bermuda throughout the take-over of the US military bases," said Don Grearson, who worked in the Military Bases Transition Organisation.

"He was the guy who sweated bullets and lost sleep figuring out how to get things done. You have to remember that no one in Bermuda in early 1994 knew anything about running an airport. No one had any aviation experience.

"People were sceptical, even fearful that the Government was not up to the challenge. But working with Grant Gibbons and John Drinkwater, Stubbings put together and drove the organisations that made the bases transition a singular success.

"I think he's one of the great unheralded heroes of Bermuda."

Stubbings was also intimately involved with the formulation of Bermuda's early negotiating position on outstanding base closure issues with the United States.

He helped negotiate the agreement with US and UK aviation authorities for the management of Bermuda's air space.

As manager of the Military Bases Transition Organisation and later for the Land Development Transition Office, Stubbings played an important role in organising the land use strategy for the military properties and later the Bermuda Land Development Company (BLDC), which is responsible for managing the reuse of the properties.

Peter Uhlman, an American who served as an environmental consultant to the Bermuda Government during the transition, described Stubbings as the lynchpin of the transition organisations.

"In management you have visionaries, you have the people who implement visions and then the grinders who follow orders.

"The middle people - those people devoted to the vision and capable of implementing it - are the most valuable. They make Washington and Bermuda work.

"In a nutshell that is who Ken Stubbings was. He had the loyalty and discipline of a military man, and the business skills of a management consultant. He deserves a lot of credit for pulling it off.

Stubbings came to Bermuda in 1986 as Director of the Government's Management Services department. Prior to that he'd served in the Royal Canadian Air Force as a navigator and later as an engineer involved in airfield construction and management services.

Cabinet Secretary John Drinkwater said Mr. Stubbings had used his contacts at the Royal Canadian Air Force to good effect. He said: "He made a valuable contribution to the government of Bermuda."

Dr. Gibbons described Mr. Stubbing as a personal friend after working closely with him over four years and an unsung hero who had sped the seamless transition of the airport bases to Bermudian control. "He got the job done quickly, efficiently and without drawing attention to himself."

Stubbings is survived by his wife Cecile, daughters Karen, Anne and Josee, sons-in-law Wayne Corkery, Michael Johansen and Sean Murray and six grandchildren.