Page 48: of Marine Technology Magazine (July 2005)

Obituary

David W. Porta

Dave Porta, a marine technology icon, passed away June 7, 2005.

Porta, co-founder of Datasonics, died suddenly from a blood clot associated with a rare form of cancer,

Leiomyosarcoma, at Cape Cod

Hospital in Hyannis, Massachusetts.

An avid long distance bicyclist, triathlete, sailor, innovator, Porta was in the picture of health and in his prime, seemingly at the age of 67. He had been semi retired since the sale of

Datasonics to Benthos in 1999. He and his wife, Nancy had migrated south in winters to enjoy the balmy

Florida breezes, moving north for

Cape Cod and Maine coastal sum- mers. He leaves a large family and eight grandchildren. "Dave was a great innovator", said

Bill Dalton, his work partner and friend of at least forty years. "He and

I made a great team. We would bounce ideas off one another and together we would come up with the solution." When asked what Dave would like to be remembered for in the marine technology industry, Bill

Dalton suggested that both he and

Dave made a special effort to bring young people into the business. They did this by offering internships for students from several schools and col- leges including Northeastern

University, which was Dave's Alma matter. There are still people in the marine technology industry that got their start at Datasonics right out of

Cape Cod Technical High School, for instance. After attending high school in Connecticut, Dave enlisted in the

US Navy and served as a cryptogra- pher. He then attended Northeastern

University and received a degree in electrical engineering. It was while on a Co-Op at Massa Products in

Hingham, Massachusetts that Dave got the ocean industry bug.

After graduation, Dave worked as an applications engineer at Ocean

Research and Engineering in

Falmouth, Mass. ORE was a spin off of Woods Hole Oceanographic

Institution producing acoustic flow measurement equipment for scien- tists and Navy researchers.

Dave left ORE to work for an elec- tronics manufacturing company in

Boston. Tired of the commute, Dave started his own company, Cape Town

Electronics installing technical alarm systems and custom home stereo sys- tems. Later in the seventies he sold that business and re-joined ORE.

Underwater acoustics was Dave's specialty. In 1980, Dave and Bill

Dalton left ORE and started

Datasonics in Bill Dalton's cellar building underwater acoustic systems for offshore oil companies. In those early days, Datasonics designed and built custom acoustic arrays to for researches at Lamont Doherty and acoustic systems for mapping internal waves for NOAA. Later on,

Datasonics became known as the source for underwater acoustic releas- es, Chirp geophysical equipment, and underwater modems. Datasonics grew from a shoe string cellar opera- tion to an $8.5 million company 19 years later.

In 1999, Benthos purchased

Datasonics. Dave continued with

Benthos as a consultant for a year and then joined his old buddy at

Akousticos/Falmouth Scientific developing underwater systems.

Recently, Dave and Bill and others had just received an SBIR phase one award to design and build an unmoored station keeping buoy to provide remote communications for the US Navy.

According to his son-in-law and colleague, James Cappellini of

Mooring Systems, Dave was a terrific applications field sales person. He connected well with clients anticipat- ing their needs and applying acoustic principles to enable them to obtain the underwater and geophysical data they needed. "I learned so much about project management, proposal writing and customer relations from Dave," said

Cappellini.

Dave's bright smile, his Florida weather reports, his boundless energy, his willing and innovative ear will be sorely missed.

Contributions can be sent in his memory to: The Cam Neeley

Foundation, 30 Winter Street,

Boston, MA 02108 or Cape Cod Free

Clinic, PO Box 5, Falmouth, MA 02541. — Maggie L. Merrill www.seadiscovery.com Marine Technology Reporter 49 people & companies

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