Howard County Recreation and Parks director Gary J. Arthur died at his Ellicott City home Thursday after a months-long bout with cancer, according to county spokesman Kevin Enright. He was 62.

He was a Baltimore native who played football at Baltimore's Polytechnic Institute. A Howard County employee since 1979, he had served as department director since December 1997. He oversaw a major expansion of Howard County's parks, with the addition of the 300-acre Blandair Park, the Western Regional Park in Glenwood and Meadowbrook Park in Ellicott City.

Enright said that as recently as February, Arthur drove a department truck with a plow during a snowstorm to clear the way for a pregnant woman scheduled to be induced when no other county driver or vehicle could immediately be found.