David W. Vannatta ’57

David died July 1, 2019, of heart failure.

At Princeton he majored in mechanical engineering, was on the football parking squad, and was social chairman of Dial Lodge. His senior-year roommates were Barry Caskey, Jim Herr, and Lex Winans.

In 1985 he earned a master’s of science degree in mechanical engineering from Portland State in Oregon. He spent 35 years in the business of electrical energy generation. He called his career “undistinguished but reasonably useful.” It ended, he wrote in our 50th-reunion yearbook, with a downsizing. He and his second wife, Sue Vannatta, moved from Oregon to Arizona. Classmates had a standing invitation to visit him and Sue there. He and Sue were “dog people,” he wrote, dispensing affection on two standard poodles. He was interested, too, in woodcarving and painting.

David is survived as well by two sons and brother Lex ’53. “A nice guy,” Lex said of him.