Bernard Rines, 90, a longtime influential figure in Gorham, died April 12, according to an email announcement from Town Manager David Cole on Monday.

Rines died just days short of his 91st birthday.

Rines was the first Town Council chairman, farmer, agricultural engineer and college professor. He was instrumental in the town’s decades-long quest for a relief route around Gorham Village to ease traffic congestion.

The highway, which finally opened in 2008, was named the Bernard P. Rines Bypass in his honor.

“He served on the Comprehensive Plan Committee back in the early 1990s, and was active statewide in transportation issues,” Cole said in a statement.

Rines founded Ag Engineers Inc., a company that designs agricultural facilities and irrigation systems in addition to repairing pumps.

He grew up in Gorham on the farm his grandfather bought in the 1890s. Rines’ mother was a descendent of the town’s first settler, John Phinney.

Funeral arrangements were not immediately available.

Bernard Rines