Charles D. Baker III, a former government official who helped shape his son former Gov. Charlie Baker’s approach to leadership, died Saturday at the North Hill senior living community in Needham at the age of 97, according to news reports.

According to The Boston Globe , Baker served as president and chairman of the consulting firm Harbridge House, whose clients included the U.S. Departments of Defense and Health and Human Services.

The Globe reports that he worked in Washington as deputy undersecretary and assistant secretary for policy and international affairs at the U.S. Department of Transportation in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Baker once turned down an opportunity to run for Massachusetts governor as a Republican in 1986.

Decades later, when his son Charlie Baker won t

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