In Memory

David Hennage

David Hennage

The following is contributed by Mike McElroy:

It’s with much sadness that I report the death of David Hennage. His wife Vivian Chen said he died Friday, February 11th , suddenly and unexpectedly, from a splitting of the artery to his heart. Dave (variously Bud and David through the years) and I were friends from Beach School onward. In high school we became fellow skeptics, reading books on philosophy and religion and looking to the Unitarian Church for some clues as to, as we put it, ‘What the hell’s going on here?’.

David never stopped working toward his vision of what matters most and his sense of obligation to others. Below is a brief bio I received from Vivian and his sons Dan and Michael.

David Hennage was born and grew up in Ohio. He earned his BA from Tufts University, Ph.D. in molecular biophysics from Yale and an MBA from the University of Chicago. While at Yale, he worked in a program for children in urban housing projects. After Yale, he chose to teach troubled children in Gary Indiana. He stayed in Gary for 13 years, the last 5 as executive director of a mental health institute. For the following 25 years, he worked as executive director for several professional and not-for-profit organizations.

After retirement as the executive director of the IEEE Computer Society, he volunteered for the Peace Corps in Vanuatu for 2 years to help establish an agricultural institute. He settled in Long Beach California in 2009. David taught yoga in CSULB’s OLLI (Cal State at Long Beach, Life Long Learning) and Taiji at Long Beach City College’s Lifetime Learning Center while pursuing his lifelong interest of sculpting. He took many courses from the Open University of CSULB, be-friended teachers and students, and became an adopted member of its sculptural family. Just a few days before he passed, he was working with Build a Robot K12 in Colorado, a program to teach children to build robots that is combined with social emotion learning. He had a lot of plans to continue to serve mankind.

Unfortunately, to our deepest sadness, he passed away unexpectedly on February 11, 2022. David was kind, considerate and always ready to help people and give back. We will miss him. David and I reconnected after his time in the Peace Corps when he came to stay with us for several days in Raleigh. Ela and I got together with David and Vivian in California in 2019 and had another visit planned for early next month. How to compress such a full, dedicated, and dynamic life into a few paragraphs? David was a good friend and a good man. I have nothing but admiration for his honesty, his sense of fairness and justice, and the energy he put into making the world a better place. 



 
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02/27/22 11:16 AM #1    

Jim Clark

Thanks, Mike. Very nice.


02/28/22 11:31 AM #2    

Bob Thomas

Well done indeed Mike. Sad news.

 

Bob Thomas

 

 


02/28/22 01:51 PM #3    

Jeffrey Dawson

What an incredible life! I'm sorry I only knew David peripherally--a missed opportunity. 
Jeff


 

 

 


02/28/22 09:13 PM #4    

Jerome Johnson

An impressive bio of a very impressive life.  Thank you for this update.


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