Gourmet-foods importer Albert Uster died the way he lived: doing something he loved.

The Swiss-born executive chef and founder of Gaithersburg, Md.-based Albert Uster Imports was killed in a sailplane crash in the Swiss Alps on July 25. He was 75. The cause of the crash is under investigation.

Uster attended the University of Houston and arrived in Washington in 1964 to help open the Washington Hilton. Two years later, he joined two other chefs and founded the Restaurant Corporation of America, which ran the bakery and restaurants at the Watergate. To stock the kitchen, Uster imported high-quality Swiss chocolate, fondant icing and marzipan, which at that time were not widely available in the United States.

He eventually began a separate importing business that, over the years, grew into a multimillion-dollar global operation selling frozen and savory gourmet products.

“He was the authority on chocolate in Washington,” says Francois Dionot, founder of cooking school L’Academie de Cuisine in Gaithersburg, who met Uster in 1969. “He was the most genuine person in the world. And he was proud to give information about something he knew so well.”

Uster, who lived in Potomac, Md., was an avid pilot, wine collector and gardener. But friends remember his passion, generosity and sense of humor: He yodeled at the slightest provocation, recalls master baker Rose Levy Beranbaum. Once, he hosted chefs on a trip through Switzerland and, in return, asked only that his guests suggest a charitable use for his money.