He came to Princeton from Boca Raton (Fla.) High School, where he played football and was on the debate team. At Princeton he majored in biology while working at Commons with supervisory duties as a head waiter. Despite the demands of his major, pre-med preparation, and job, Don found time to participate in the Orange Key Program and Chapel Fellowship and belonged to Cloister Inn. Senior year Don lived with Erle Pettus III and Dick Morgan in Cuyler.
After graduation he completed an advanced medical school program at Duke in 1975 and then served in the Navy for three years as a medical officer at Charleston and aboard the USS Sierra in the Mediterranean. In addition to his routine duties, Don played his guitar and sang along with the young homesick sailors each evening before bedtime, helping to improve their attitudes despite being in shared small spaces. Always thinking of ways to serve others, he advocated for rotation of men who were stationed in the furnace room with extreme heat conditions.
From 1978 to 1983, Don did his residency and fellowship in vascular surgery at the University of Missouri, including time in the vascular research lab. One of his research colleagues described Don as a think tank who was always coming up with ideas to improve the outcomes for research, which gained him great respect. His experience in Boca Raton High School debate team helped him in his public speaking at national medical and surgical meetings, and made him a natural teacher with medical students.
Don went into private practice with a large surgical group in the Atlanta area from 1983 to 2003 and was inducted as a Fellow into the American College of Surgeons in 1986. The senior partner in his group described him as the most gifted surgeon he ever worked with, at his best when emergencies or abnormal anatomy occurred, and able to keep the entire team calm and quickly resolve the problem.
Don was a very focused and intense person, who was a good and generous friend. At Princeton he was willing to lend his beloved Studebaker to other students who needed transportation. His skill as a mechanic was demonstrated by the fact that it carried him to and from Florida for four years. Later he was happiest when wearing his white coat, solving life-threatening cardio-vascular problems. He found peace from the demands of his job sailing his sailboat, or riding a horse; he enjoyed being called the “cowboy surgeon” since he came into the hospital with boots and cowboy hat. In his later years, shortly before he left the surgical practice, he would make weekend rounds with a veterinarian, who taught him advanced horse care. In return, Don taught the vet how to get sutures to hold on a horse for healing, since horses often bit the sutures out. He seems never to have stopped learning and striving for better outcomes.
He married Rueleen in 1972. They later divorced. Don and Rueleen had two sons, Ted and Benjamin, one daughter, Rachel, and several grandchildren. The class extends belated condolences to his family.