We didn't know Jean Mater well, but even in our few encounters with her, we could tell - everyone who met her undoubtedly could tell - that here was a Corvallis original. For that matter, here was an American original.

Mater, a longtime Corvallis business and community leader, died Sunday at age 92.

She was a native of New York City, and even more than six decades of life in the somewhat slower lanes of Corvallis didn't entirely brush away the big-city girl. Even near the end of her life, she still positively hummed with brash energy and charm and, yes, a certain bluntness.

Mater was a pioneer in so many ways: She collected a master's degree in chemistry from Cornell University in 1940, at a time when few women studied the sciences.

She continued her science career during the 1940s, working as a chemist for Bell Labs, where she worked on ways to combat German U-boats. Again, she succeeded in a landscape dominated by men. In fact, shattering gender barriers was one of the hallmarks of her life: When she was named president of the Corvallis Chamber of Commerce in 1974, she was the first woman to hold such a position anywhere in Oregon.

After she and her husband, Milt, moved to Corvallis in 1946, the two worked side-by-side to build their business, Mater Engineering, from a small machine shop into a worldwide force in the forestry industry. She earned a doctorate in forest-products chemistry from Oregon State University in 1955 and became a good friend to OSU's College of Forestry.

In her role as a Corvallis business leader, she was instrumental in helping to quell opposition to Hewlett-Packard's plans in the 1970s to open a calculator plant here. She reasoned that the plant would be a good fit for Corvallis and also saw - although this wasn't clear at the time - that HP also would attract other high-tech industries.

And this just scratches the surface of the many ways Mater touched Corvallis: The family she and Milt raised. The scores of organizations she helped. The women who have traveled on trails that she helped blaze.

Jean Mater leaves behind a community that's richer because she was here. What better legacy can any of us strive for?

A memorial service for Jean Mater is scheduled at 11 a.m. Thursday, July 10, at First Congregational United Church of Christ, 4515 S.W. West Hills Road.