Megan Star (Leavitt) Letarte

SUMMERFIELD, Fla. – On Thursday, June 19, 2025, at 11:08 p.m., Megan Star (Leavitt) Letarte, 69, an amazing, caring and exceptional woman passed away. Medically, it was the consummate evil of liver cancer that ended her life too soon. For those who loved her, it was the good Lord who needed her talented fingers to work on His latest quilted tapestry.

Megan taught us how to be our true selves. She taught us how to love, and she believed in loving hard. She was a good friend, supportive sister, loving daughter, patient life partner, and an extraordinary mother and nana to those lucky enough to be her children and grandchildren.

Megan was born at Mercy Hospital in Portland on Dec. 16, 1955, daughter to J. Edward Leavitt and Joanne (Stewart) Leavitt. Her mother, Joanne, taught Megan early on the true value of participation and community. She also inherited her mother’s creative abilities, learning to mend, fix and sew, creating things that she would give away. She also taught Megan to be quick to smile, something that came easily and served her well.

In high school she joined the Westbrook Marching Band where a young clarinet player named Mike caught her fancy. Despite objections from her older brothers at the time, it blossomed into a lifelong romance where she practiced the true art of “loving hard”. As part of the band, she got her first real taste of travelling. Later, she went to Greece on a class trip, the first of her many international travels.

Megan started a family with the clarinet player, and they were soon blessed with son Jaime and daughter Melissa, beginning the best position she ever held, that of “Mom”. (Best that is, until she became “Nana”). Juggling the demands of her young family, she became a Real Estate broker. Realizing her family needed more consistency, she joined the staff at S.D. Warren (and later Sappi) where her skills at mending and fixing problems caught the eye of upper management and her career in supervision and management began.

She was quickly promoted and when the Spinnaker Plant adjacent to the Westbrook Mill needed a Materials Distribution Manager, her career in the pressure sensitive label industry began. When Spinnaker closed that facility, she joined the staff at Lamtec/Traktec as their General Manager, assuaging the demands of the most difficult clients and customers. Her smile melted anger, her knowledge gained their trust.

Her company loyalty and impressive customer service skills enticed the Finnish manufacturer and international powerhouse UPM Raflatac to extend an offer: become our VIP Product Manager for North America. Megan and Mike quickly packed up and moved to the Asheville, N.C. area and the next chapter began. At her first UPM review the unthinkable happened, the company expressed concern! She had already met their two-year customer service and retention projections, so they asked her to please slow down a bit. Her problem-solving skills were recognized by numerous awards, including international recognition when she flew to Finland to receive the “Global Employee of the Year Award” directly from the company President. She was promoted to Technical Product Consulting Manager, travelling throughout the Americas mending relationships and fixing client problems.

Stories abound of clients calling UPM to complain, disparaging the company’s products or staff. Megan would hop on a plane, travel to the client’s location and listen to “Mr. So-and-So” rant. She would then walk down to the production floor and talk with the machine operators, the folks doing the actual work. The reaction was the same, what does some woman from Maine know about production? Meg’s hands-on knowledge quickly became obvious as she would suggest a couple of tweaks to the company’s own production line, resetting tensions here and there. The problems were fixed. The customers were happy and UPM client retention vastly increased during her 14 years there.

When her husband was offered an intriguing opportunity in Texas, Megan still solved UPM’s problems, just with fewer hours spent in the headquarters. A couple of years later they moved to their permanent home in Summerfield, Fla., where Mike became a Realtor and Megan later embarked upon her favorite job of all, Nana to her five grandchildren. Even as the older kids became high school students, they still clambered to go to “Nana Camp” during school vacations.

Retirement offered Megan the chance to quilt and craft and sew more. She got more time to be Nana. She travelled with her “girls”, a group of former co-workers for weeks of laughter, laughter and even more laughter.

Her friendships ran deep. She was easy to be around, quick to love and to trust. For all that knew her and were loved by her, there is now a piece missing from their lives… a quilted piece that can’t be easily fixed or mended.

Megan was preceded in death by her father, J. Edward Leavitt, mother, Joanne (Stewart) Leavitt; and sister, Mallory (Leavitt) Eichelberger.

She is survived by her husband, Michael V. Letarte; son, Jaime (Ashley) Letarte, daughter, Melissa (Letarte) Hawes; brothers Michael S. (Lynda) Leavitt and Marlon S. (Donna) Leavitt; grandchildren, Abby, Andy, Archer, Emily and Brandon; and her dear friend, Donna A.

Megan built and maintained an extraordinarily large and loving community of nieces and nephews, cousins and extended family, friends, neighbors, co-workers and associates far too numerous to mention here.

The family will hold a private Celebration of Life sometime in the future.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests those that feel the need to contribute something to please consider your local hospice or favorite children’s charity.