H. David Bonner ’59

In our 10th-reunion yearbook in which he extolled the perceived glories of his then-adopted home, San Francisco, Dave avowed that “nothing would get me back to New York.” Well, best laid plans and all that, because by the time of our 35th reunion (and presumably well before) Dave found himself with a wife and two children in Lexington, Mass., as president of Bontronics, an audio-visual company.

To start at the beginning, or nearly so, Dave came to Princeton from upstate New York’s Monroe High School, where he played basketball and ran track. At the halls of ivy he joined Key and Seal, majored in economics, soared with the Flying Club, and tuned dials at WPRB. Leaving that behind in 1959, he gained a Navy Supply Corps commission at OCS Newport, rode a destroyer for several months, then enrolled at Harvard Business School (MBA in 1965). Then followed his career at Bontronics, which he sold, after 40 or so years, to High Output in Canton, Mass., remaining on in a consulting capacity. But as he was settling into a slower pace, he endured a near-fatal accident in 2007, when he fell from a ladder at work, sustaining serious head injuries that required a several-month — but successful — recovery.

Dave died Nov. 10, 2023. He is survived by his wife, Jane; and children Kathryn and Aaron.