OBITUARY: Lance P. Haines, 55

Below is an obituary from Nichols Funeral Home:

WILMINGTON, MA — Lance P. Haines, age 55, of Wilmington, passed away peacefully at home on Saturday, June 20, 2026. He was in treatment for kidney cancer for the last two and a half years of his life.

He is remembered as an unfailingly hopeful, level-headed man of God, abounding in energy, humor, intelligence, and a positive attitude. Lance was a beloved husband, father, son, colleague, and friend. He was a patient and kind father. In 1999, Lance welcomed a son, followed by a daughter in 2001. He was a hands-on father who instilled his love of music, sports, hard work, and perseverance into his children. He provided wise counsel to his children, sharing his credo: love, forgiveness, and hope.

Lance and his forever wife, Christina Haines, met in 2014 through a shared love of live music. Throughout their ten-year marriage, they skied, traveled internationally–most recently to the West African country of Cape Verde–and spent time with friends at some of Lance’s favorite concerts, including: U2, Zac Brown Band, Michael Franti, Aretha Franklin, Jimmy Buffet, Kirk Franklin, and Vampire Weekend. Lance and Christina fostered two brothers from 2019-2020 with whom they maintain a loving connection.They found joy together and navigated life’s challenges through their shared core values: faith, service, intellectual curiosity, an abundance mindset, and the belief that love is a choice we practice. They were effective altruists and philanthropists, supporting economic development and health interventions to alleviate extreme poverty.

Throughout his life, Lance served his church and the global community. He completed numerous Christian mission trips, including expeditions to bring clean water to residents of Honduras, rebuild in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina, and expand the Methodist Children’s Home of Costa Rica. He also brought the Stand and Deliver youth mentoring program to Schneider Electric, tutoring and encouraging students to explore STEM careers.

Lance took spiritual development seriously throughout his life, and encouraged family, friends, and acquaintances in their faith journey. He had formative experiences attending services with family, and participating in Christian camp as a teen. In college, he persuaded friends to wake up early on Sunday mornings and was a “church buddy.” As an adult, he found a long-term home at Wilmington United Methodist Church where he held numerous ministry positions over the years, served as a Sunday school teacher, and most recently launched a “Fresh Expressions” outreach hiking ministry. During the ski season, he and his wife could be found at the top of Loon Mountain worshipping with Loon Mountain Ministry.

Lance’s travels began at a young age. At the age of 6 weeks, he flew from Governor’s Island, New York to Manilla, Philippines; Iwakuni, Japan and Okinawa, to be with his father, a Marine Corps fighter pilot. At the age of 2, he gleefully sounded out his first word, “exit,” on an airplane. He met early challenges with resilience and faith, including the death of his youngest sister in 1978 and his parents’ divorce a year later.

Lance excelled in school, skipping from first to second grade. His academic excellence never wavered, despite moves from Florida to Hawaii to Texas. A National Merit Scholar and Valedictorian of the first graduating class of Marcus High School in Flower Mound, Texas, in 1988, he was also captain of the wrestling team, class vice-president and a treasured friend. His best friend, Dan Lee, later became his brother-in-law.

Lance graduated magna cum laude from Rice University in Houston, TX, in 1993, earning a B.S./B.A. with a double major in electrical engineering and Spanish. He met many lifelong friends at his undergraduate residence, Baker College. Lance played on the Rice Rugby football club throughout his college years, where the club won multiple conference championships. He spent a semester of his junior year studying abroad in Chile, traveling up and down the country with Rice friends, exploring and working on Spanish fluency. Lance’s passion for alternative energy was ignited while en route to his study abroad in Chile, where the smog clouds over Santiago inspired him to dedicate his career to eliminating tailpipe emissions.

Lance went on to earn an M.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1995, where he was a fellow of WEMPEC (Wisconsin Electric Machines and Power Electronics Consortium). He studied under Prof. Bob Lorenz and co-authored the textbook Fundamentals of Electrical and Electro-Mechanical Power Conversion as his thesis, which is still taught today. He studied the relationship of the electrical, mechanical, magnetic, and controls disciplines and developed a capacity to explain and break down these complex systems exceptionally well.

This led to a career at Solectria, an innovative early adopter for electric vehicle propulsion. During his eight years with the startup, he managed a team developing power electronics (e.g. inverters), motors, and other components for the hybrid electric vehicle market and the renewable energy market. This was followed by a move to American Power Conversion, where he worked on technical and market research. Lance led engineering and marketing teams in concept development, including the Universal Transfer Switch, which enables generators, uninterruptible power supplies, and intelligent load management to work together for resilience in residential scale power systems.

Lance spent the last seventeen years of his career enabling sustainability and resilience through microgrids at Schneider Electric, a French multinational corporation. He most recently served as Chief Technology Officer of Microgrids. During his time at Schneider Electric, he served as the technical lead for the development of products that enabled lower cost, lower risk, faster deployment of microgrids, program management for the development of solar (photovoltaic) inverter product lines, among other contributions.

Lance is survived by his wife, Christina Haines, of Wilmington, MA; son, Travis Swift Haines, and wife Miriam Haines, of North Chelmsford, MA and daughter, April Grace Haines, of Salt Lake City, UT and their mother Shannon DePierro; mother, Robin Ruth Engel, and husband Harry Herschel Sutherland, of Canyon Lake, TX; sister, Lark Leilani Lee, and husband Daniel Lee, of New Braunfels, TX and their children Mason Lance Lee and Micah Palmer Lee; step-mother, Pamela Haines, of Camp Wood, TX; fostered sons, J. and A.; aunts, uncles, cousins, and many friends. Lance was preceded in death by his father Palmer Swift Haines in 2004 and sister April Lee Haines in 1978.

Family and friends are invited to gather for a Celebration of Life for Lance that will be held at Wilmington United Methodist Church, 87 Church St. in Wilmington, MA on Friday, July 31, 2026 at 11:30 a.m.

Memorial contributions can be made to organizations Lance supported for many years, including: The BOMA Project, Fostering Hope New England, CAMFED, or Cure Blindness Project.

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