“He was a fisherman’s friend … Optimistic … The kind of guy who really makes an impact on people … He’d look you in the eye and never lie to you … He was Mr. Marine Finance … He was very well respected and admired by everyone … He was very social, with an outgoing personality … He was kind and he was generous with his time and with his energy … He never forgot anybody, was incapable of it … He meant a lot to me … He had a heart a big as he was … We had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs.” Those are just some of the things people have said about Capt. Warren Little, of Augusta, who died on Dec. 22.
Warren Little made the U.S. Navy his career. He was a Master Diver who did underwater ship and facility repair. He volunteered for multiple tours of duty during the Vietnam War, during which he patrolled the Mekong Delta and went on many Rescue and Recovery missions. He also worked with the amphibious force, piloting military vessels up to 120 feet in length.
After retiring from the military, he received his commercial captain’s license and ran pleasure craft charters. Between his Naval service and his charter business, he used to say he’d sailed every sea and visited every port.
Having been predeceased by his wife and having a strong desire to help those less fortunate, he developed an interest in counseling troubled young people and took many college courses to enable him to do so. But he also became personally involved in teenagers’ lives as a friend and a mentor. He even helped some with their college tuition. He “adopted” in a grandfatherly way, more than 15 young people.
During the last four years of his life, Warren Little ran the commercial marine vessel-finance side of the Scarborough-based Maine Financial Group for owner Walter Purda, who does heavy equipment financing. The two had worked together at Key Bank, in Augusta.
“It was like [Warren] had a vision, getting financing for boats,” recalled lobsterman Leroy Bridges, of Sunshine Island, off Deer Isle. “The program is not intrusive,” he explained. “You’d call. He’d come to you 6, 7, 8 o’clock at night. He made out the application. He’d bring the check to your house.” There was no going to banks, where fishermen often felt looked down upon, Bridges said; “It’s a whole different paradigm from the normal.” He also mentioned Little’s Emergency Re-power Program explaining, “Say you have a boat and the engine blew up. Warren got you back on the water immediately.”
Boat broker Peter Purington, of West Bowdoin, who for the last four years was on the phone with Little at least once a day, took the story from there. “Warren Little didn’t work for Maine Financial Group, he worked for fishermen. The fishermen came first, though he thought the world of Walter Purda,” he said, adding that one of Little’s missions was to secure vessel financing for young fishermen. “I’d call Warren up and say I had a young prospect who needed a boat,” he recalled. “He’d talk the boat owner into dropping the price, I’d drop my commission, and Warren would go pound on Walter.”
Well, not literally. A large man, Warren Little was six feet tall and between 350 and 400 pounds. He drove a big Lincoln to accommodate his girth, though he talked about getting a pickup, according to lobsterman John Munsey, 37, of Harpswell, who explained, “He didn’t like running the docks in a Lincoln.”
According to James Amabile, 37, who does credit checks for Maine Financial, if Little had to decline a boat mortgage, he had a knack for letting the person down gently, for telling people what they needed to do to qualify. “He put out his own fires,” said Amabile. “He’d say, ‘This is what we can do; you’re responsible for the rest.’ He put the burden on them. He spent as much time with a guy [wanting a] $5,000 loan as he would for a $150,000 loan.”
Not only did he charm fishermen, Amabile said, he charmed their wives and children as well, and was known to bring a bouquet of flowers to a fisherman’s wife on Valentine’s Day or on a boat’s launch day.
Warren Little used to sit on a stool at the Maine Fisherman’s Forum and pass out hats with the Maine Financial Group logo. Amabile said, “Fishermen lined up to see him.”
“The forum will not be the same,” said Bridges. “The guy was bigger than life to me.”