The David Vincent Memorial Page

March 29, 1956 - March 21, 2005

This page is dedicated to David Vincent.....

devoted father, husband, musician, friend and dedicated professional.

A man after God's own heart.

David Vincent was the Grateful Dudes' first webmaster. Early in 2000, he approached Rodger Phillips and Scott Micale about building a webpage for the band. Dave set up and developed this website and maintained it for about 8 months before his job as a Senior Scientist at Raytheon got too busy for him to be able to handle the extra work.

At that time, David was in the process of teaching me to build and design websites. The design part was a natural for me as an Art Major in college, but the computer stuff was something else. Thanks to David's patience, I was able to learn html and web design and have maintained and updated these pages since Winter of 2000.

David was born on March 29, 1956, at the Great Lakes Naval Weapon Station Hospital in Waukegan, Illinois, the first born child of Harry and Patricia Vincent. Because of his father's career as an agronomist, he and his 3 brothers and 2 sisters grew up all over the United States. He spent time as a child living in Terrytown, New York; Brownsville, Texas; Mobile, Alabama; Waukegan, Illinois, Austin, Texas and Kalamazoo, Michigan. As a teenager, he resided in Kalamazoo, Michigan and graduated from Portage Northern High School with honors in June of 1978.

He was a member of the Portage Northern High School Symphony Orchestra, as well as the local Youth Symphony Orchestra. He played cello and bass. He served as the Varsity Track Team manager and was an Eagle Scout. He was a member of the National Honor Society and a Junior Achievement Officer. He received a partial scholarship to Michigan State University from the Rohm and Hass Company. While in high school, he interned for IBM during the summer, learning to write computer programs and interfaces for voice recognition computers for the blind.

During his senior year, David belonged to a popular local rock & roll group called HMS. He played the bass. They were asked to sign a record contract, but because David and the others were still minors, their parents refused to sign for them and the band broke up. David always regretted that decision. He longed to play music professionally.

Instead, he went on to attend Michigan State University in Lansing, Michigan where he graduated with a Batchelor of Science degree in Mathematics. He was a member of the S.C.A. and the Tolkien Fellowship. He was a National Merit Scholar from 1974 to 1978. He graduated in June of 1978. David choose to work in the aerospace industry and found employment at Hughes Aircraft following graduation. He moved to Southern California in the summer of 1978 and worked for two years as a Staff Mathematician and was promoted to Senior Project Engineer.

Other companies he worked for included Adams Russell's Digital Processing Division in Waltham, Massachusetts, as a Senior Staff Engineer; Perkin-Elmer Applied Sciences Division in Garden Grove, California as a Director of Project and Systems Engineering; Space Systems/Loral's field office in Fort Wayne, Indiana as the Deputy Program Manager for the Goes Weather Satellite Program; ITT Aerospace/Communication as a Manager-Assistant Director-Senior Scientist and as a manager and assistant Program Director in the field office in Orange County, California; and finally at Raytheon Electronic Systems in El Segundo, California as a Senior Scientist-Manager-Engineer.
 

He was a member of the Association of Old Crows, an organization devoted to that advocates the advancement of electronic defense development, knowledge, and techniques. David wrote and received both a European and American patent for a math formula he invented entitled "A Wavelet-based Technique for Reducing Noise in Images and Signals." (1997). He wrote a number of published technical articles.

David and I met in 1985 in Ontario, California. David was my sister's boss and had expressed interest in meeting some nice, single women. I must be nice, because we were married on Saturday, December 13, 1986 in Upland, California and moved to Torrance, California. My 13 yr. old son, Christopher moved in with us. On April 6, 1988, our only natural child, Sarah Rebecca was born in Redondo Beach, California.

David also served as the Youth Pastor at our first church, First Southern Baptist of Gardena in 1990. He later served on the Pastor Search Committee and the Finance Committees, as well as providing IT support for the church's computer systems. He served at Keefer Creek Baptist Church [formerly Indian Lakes Baptist Church] in Fort Wayne, Indiana, as it's first deacon, as the worship leader, as the head of several communities and as its co-Administrator. In 2002, David and I began to attend The Sanctuary in Huntington Beach, California. There, David served as an audio-visual technician and substitute bass player. He taught the Beginner's Christianity class and was appointed the church's first deacon. He was a devoted Christian and was personally responsible for helping lead me to the Lord.

David was a part time musician and a member of the International Bluegrass Association. He enjoyed going to Disneyland and had owned an Annual Passport to the theme park since 1985. He loved all types of music and was never happier than when he was locked up in his music room playing the bass, mandolin or guitar. He loved going to concerts and enjoyed building computers, model trains and remote controlled planes. He loved playing jazz and bluegrass, and reading science fiction and Christian books. He was greatly admired and esteemed in the aerospace community for his knowledge and integrity. He was a loyal and thoughtful man and always willing to be of help to anyone. He was the most honest man I ever met.

David was a loving husband. He was a devoted father to Chris, Joi and Sarah and a loving grandfather to Chris and Joi's three sons, Garrison, Gage and Gavin. The boys loved playing with "Grandpa Dave". David was extremely proud of our daughter, Sarah.

David died suddenly and unexpectedly on Monday, March 21, 2005 at our home in Huntington Beach, California of a massive heart attack. He was only 48. Sarah and I found him, but it was already too late. Being the thoughtful husband he was, he was doing the dishes when it happened.

A memorial service was held in Huntington Beach, California on Saturday, April 2, at 1 pm with a reception that followed. David's ashes were released to the sea in a private service on board the yacht, White Light on Friday, May 27, 2005 in the Pacific Ocean offshore from our home in Huntington Beach, California.

On January 17, 2006, David's brother Jeff and his wife, Allison named their first son after him.... Jackson David Vincent. David would have been proud.