Steve Bernard, 61; free spirit founded Cape Cod Potato Chips

Steve Bernard based his cooking technique on chip making in Maui. He also created Chatham Village Croutons. (Joanne Rathe/Globe Staff/file 1996)

Cape Cod Potato Chips founder Steve Bernard, a driven entrepreneur whose kettle-cooked snack became a national staple of barbecues and beach picnics, died of pancreatic cancer Saturday at Cape Cod Hospital. He was 61.

Friends said Mr. Bernard, who also launched Chatham Village Croutons and Late July Organic Snacks, was an optimist who was never too busy to help other entrepreneurs.

"He helped in ways he has no idea. He helped by being an example that you can be in business and still be a human being," said Gary Hirshberg, chief executive of the Stonyfield Farm dairy products company.

Inspired by an article on chip-making in Maui, Mr. Bernard and his wife, Lynn, opened the chip company in 1980 on the Fourth of July in Hyannis.

They worked seven days a week and mortgaged their home to keep the business going. Chip sales were weak until a motorist drove through the company's front window and almost hit Mr. Bernard's wife and then 8-year-old daughter one winter.

News coverage of the accident and the insurance money helped to boost sales. Customers were soon lined up out the door, according to the family.

In 1985, Mr. Bernard sold the brand for $7 million to Anheuser-Busch's Eagle Snacks division. He bought the company back in 1995, when the brand was near extinction and Anheuser Busch had moved to sell off Eagle.

"He hired everyone back, and he got it back on store shelves," said his daughter, Nicole Bernard Dawes of Chatham. "One of the reasons why he was so successful - he had a complete and utter refusal to give up."

By 1999, the company was earning $30 million in annual sales. He sold the company again, this time to Lance Inc.

He also sold crouton-maker Chatham Village Foods that same year and sought to spend his retirement on the golf courses of Sanibel, Fla.

His daughter's idea for another Cape Cod-based snack food company coaxed him off the links. They launched Late July Organic Snacks in 2003. The box for the company's new minicookies carries an illustration of him walking with his wife and grandsons.

"It was just a gift to be able to work with him these last five years and to see him in action," his daughter said.

Mr. Bernard's persistence and generosity opened more doors for him than any other attribute, Hirshberg said.

His entrepreneurial success is astounding in the competitive snack food world, he added. "Doing this once is impossible. Twice is crazy, and three times is just unheard of," he said.

Mr. Bernard remained close friends with Kevin Bowler, the man who helped persuade him to sell the chip business to Anheuser-Busch and remain with the company.

"He was one of the most unassuming characters you ever want to meet, very humble," said Bowler, who is now an Anheuser distributor in Florida.

The men dreamed up Cape Cod White Cheddar Popcorn together one day on a flight, he said. They also created pretzels in the shape of Cape Cod lighthouses. "We were a couple of dreamers, and Mr. Busch allowed us to do what we wanted," he said.

Friend Mike Arnheiter recalled Mr. Bernard's love of golf and joking around. "I'm going to miss him forever," he said. "He had a great sense of humor. He was a clutch golfer when he played with me. He'd say he needed money that day so he needed to play against me."

Born in Concord, N.H. to Sergius and Mary Bernard, Stephen Bernard was the youngest of five children.

He showed a rebellious, independent spirit from a young age, according to his family.

He graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in economics in 1969 and set out on a cross-country hitchhiking adventure with his friend John Carlton. They were gone for several years.

The young men hopped a fishing boat to Alaska, where they also fought forest fires. They later sailed from New England to the Caribbean. Mr. Bernard camped out in a drain pipe in Puerto Rico for weeks.

He returned to New England and worked on a tuna fishing boat in the 1970s.

He met his wife at the Newport Folk Festival. They were married for 37 years. She introduced him to natural foods when she opened a health food store in 1978 on the Cape.

He loved cooking, organic gardening, and Briard dogs, a large, shaggy breed.

Mr. Bernard was very close to his grandsons, ages 6 and 2. After he was diagnosed with cancer in November, he told his family he had only one regret. "He wished he had the opportunity to take the boys fly fishing in Montana," his daughter said. "He really lived the life he wanted."

In addition to his wife and daughter, Mr. Bernard leaves three brothers, Sergius J. of Wenham, Jude of Woodstock, Conn., and Jimmy of Montpelier; a sister, Virginia of Charlottesville, Va.; and two grandsons.

A memorial celebration of his life will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday in Cotuit Federated Church. Burial will be in Mosswood Cemetery in Cotuit.