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Daniel Maurice Parr, the director of professional licensing for the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, died last week of cancer. He was 58.

Parr, a community activist, had been chief of staff for Thomas E. Perez, secretary of the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, when Perez was a member of the Montgomery County Council.

Parr, who was active in several civic organizations, followed Perez to his state post.

"He was an unflagging optimist that one person or a group of people could change life for the better," said Ellen Weiss, his wife of 33 years who lived with him for 38 years. "He spent his life doing that."

"It was a sad day for the county, especially sad for activists who worked with Dan over the years," said Perez, who awaits confirmation on his nomination as assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division. "He was my right-hand person, my left-hand person and my conscience. Montgomery County was built on a foundation of civic activism, and Dan was a major part of that foundation."

Parr took on "every progressive cause in Montgomery County," Perez said. "He had a passion for the underdog."

Parr died Sept. 9 at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore from complications of a bone marrow transplant after a struggle with myelofibrosis, a form of blood cancer.

"He was such an optimist and a fighter; he didn't believe he was going to die," Weiss said. "He fought and fought."

A geographer by profession, Parr ran his own consulting business and was a past president of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association. Parr, who served as PTA president at three different schools, also was active with educational issues. In the 1990s, as founder of Citizens for a Better Blair, he pushed behind the scenes for construction of a new Montgomery Blair High School, which opened in 1997.

Parr also was a board member of Casa of Maryland, the state's largest Hispanic advocacy group.

Civil rights lawyer Martha Bergman of Takoma Park said Parr took her and her husband under his wing after they arrived in the neighborhood in 1987.

"We were among the many people who Dan cheerfully recruited to be part of his many efforts to make the community a better place," Bergman said. "Dan Parr was an absolute mainstay of civic activism in Takoma Park and eastern Montgomery County. His public spirit was unequaled by anyone."