Mr. Richards, who was deputy mayor under White and later served as the top development official on Beacon Hill, played a key role in the airport’s modernization and the creation of the South Boston Seaport District. But that role, which involved the arcane and complicated minutiae of development deals, almost always occurred outside public view.
“I think his greatest legacy will be his behind-the-scenes ability to advance complex projects,’’ said Thomas Kinton, former chief executive of Massport, where Mr. Richards had worked since 1999. “He wasn’t a headline grabber. He was somebody who worked diligently for many, many bases that needed to be touched. He was just so good at it.’’
“The breadth of his work is incredible,’’ said Jim Rooney, executive director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. “The major infrastructure projects that one can think about in Boston over the last quarter of a century have Lowell’s fingerprints on them some place.’’
In addition to the seaport and the airport, those projects include the Big Dig, the new Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, and the efforts to redevelop the East Boston waterfront.
“These are major, major public investments. Lowell wasn’t necessarily involved in the management of them, but in figuring out how to pay the bills,’’ Rooney said. “He really had a devoted sense of purpose about these projects and what the larger value was to the city, the Commonwealth, and the citizens.’’
His wife, Karen, said Mr. Richards, a fit man who loved skiing, had spent part of his last day working at home on Massport business. Mr. Richards had been writing job reviews and working on a possible trip to Japan to lure air connections to Boston, said his wife of 40 years.
“Lowell was always one of those people who knew what he wanted to do next,’’ Karen Richards said.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino echoed that sense of Mr. Richards’s determination.
