In Memoriam: David Clapp

To our campus community:

It is with sadness we report the passing of Professor Emeritus David Clapp, a pioneer in the development of distance learning courses who spent more than three decades at Florida Tech.

Dr. Clapp died Aug. 9. He was 85.

A New Jersey native, Dr. Clapp fell in love with the Rocky Mountains as a young man and attended the University of Colorado, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering.

Military service followed. Dr. Clapp served on active duty in the U.S. Air Force, ultimately earning the rank of captain. He would meet his wife, Mary Ann Everly, around this time, and they had two children.

Dr. Clapp would go on to earn his master’s degree and Ph.D. from Arizona State University. Dr. Clapp was a registered professional engineer (PE) and Project Management Professional (PMP).

His first job was at Mt. Rainer National Park, according to his obituary, and then he served as a professor at what is now University of Centra Florida. He later worked with the federal Centers for Disease Control managing projects in assessing the hazards of exposure to chemical and physical agents in the workplace, an area Dr. Clapp focused on in much of his research. While at CDC, he served in the Division of Surveillance, Health Evaluations and Field Studies and later with the Center for Environmental Health and Injury Control.

In 1990, he came to Florida Tech. Five years later, he offered the first distance learning course at the university on the topic of project management, an area of expertise for Dr. Clapp. He would remain at the university for more than 30 years, including several years at the Orlando site.