AASP Primary Records Program

AASP Newsletter 33(2): p. 5, 2000.

DONALD W. ENGELHARDT
by David Wall

All too often in the final year of the departing century, we learned of the passing of revered friends and colleagues in palynology. Unfortunately the year 2000 began on another sad note as many of us were shocked to learn of the death of Donald ("Don") W. Engelhardt on February 13th after a brief baffle with cancer. Don died in Columbia, South Carolina, USA just twelve days before his 65th birthday. He was a staunch supporter and contributor to the AASP and was President in the 1972-73 term. He attended almost all of the Annual Meetings, beginning in the mid-sixties up to and including last years gathering in Savannah, Georgia, after which he was taken ill.

Don spent the greater part of his career with Amoco Production Company. He joined it in 1961 (when it was still known as Pan American Petroleum Corporation) and retired in 1992 when he took a position with the Earth Sciences and Resources Institute at the University of South Carolina. This he held until his untimely death. While he was with Amoco, Don spent four years at the Tulsa Research Center, thirteen years at the Denver Region in Colorado and finally fourteen years in the Houston Region. He attained the level of Senior Paleontologic Associate and spent several years both as a supervisor of Paleontology and a Division Geologist for the West Texas-New Mexico operations group. His work initially focussed on "domestic" frontiers such as the Gulf of Mexico, Rocky Mountains and particularly Alaska, but later shifted to "international" ventures as far flung as (then) Yugoslavia. Eastern Africa, Southeast Asia, Myanmar (Burma) and northern South America.

At the University of South Carolina, Don was an active contributor and participant in the mission of the University. He served on dissertation committees, proposal review committees, and in general promoted the cause of the University. He continued his biostratigraphic research on many projects in the Earth Sciences and Resources Institute (ESRI-USC), including most recently, the palynology of the Savannah River Site. This work is part of a new venture to promote micropaleontology in application to environmental preservation and restoration. It will be published in a forthcoming multi-authored book.

Don's Ph.D. dissertation at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, was a palynologic study of local postglacial and interglacial deposits and in subsequent years, Late Tertiary pollen and spore biostratigraphy became his specialty. However, his daily work at Amoco was extremely diversified and included Permian to Recent ages and extended to other fossil groups such as dinoflagellates and algae plus kerogen typing and allied paleoenvironmental studies. Don liked to describe it as "a little of everything". His dedication and willingness to attempt new ventures gave him encyclopedic knowledge of taxonomy and literature. This he generously shared with his co-workers and in short courses he taught at the University of Arizona, Arizona State and Rice University. He authored and co-authored some nine publications on new Tertiary pollen genera and dinoflagellates.

In his day to day life, Don was extremely well liked by his colleagues and greatly admired for his unrelenting enthusiasm for palynology. He never tired of the excitement of discovery and exchanging experiences with his colleagues. He held an ultra-positive attitude and never complained even though he endured some very difficult times. Those of us who knew his smile and companionship will miss him "a bunch". He leaves behind his wife Cynthia and three children.

AASP Newsletter 33(3): p. 7, 2000.

LETTER OF DEDICATION FOR DONALD WAYNE ENGELDHARDT
by James E. Canright, Professor Emeritus, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287

Donald Wayne Engelhardt was born in Blue Island, Illinois, on February 25, 1935. Upon completion of his secondary education, he matriculated at Wabash College, a Crawfordsville, Indiana institution, widely recognized for its high academic standards.

After his graduation from Wabash College in 1957 with an outstanding record in biology, Don joined my paleobotanical research group at Indiana University, where he was awarded a Graduate Teaching Assistantship for a 4-year period. In 1962 he completed his Ph.D. dissertation entitled, 'A palynological study of postglacial and interglacial deposits in Indiana." About this time Aureal Cross had just begun organizing a stratigraphic palynology group at the Pan American Petroleum Corporation (now BP-Amoco) in Tulsa and, after interviewing Don, hired him to join that group as a Research Scientist. During a 25-year period with Amoco, he served as Staff Paleontologist in the Denver Region, Regional Paleontologist in Houston, then Division Exploitation Geologist in the West Texas-New Mexico, and Senior Paleontologic Associate in the Houston office. In 1992 he took a position as Research Professor in the Earth Sciences and Resources Institute of the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC

Don joined AASP shortly after its founding in 1967, and immediately became actively involved with this new organization. He was elected as Vice-President in 1970, with the major responsibility of arranging and coordinating the 4th Annual Meeting in Tucson in 1971. He next ascended to the position of President of AASP for the 1972-73 term of office. This was followed by service as a Councillor during 1973-74. He served on a number of AASP committees, as well as chairing technical sessions at annual meetings.

Due to his greatly increased responsibility with Amoco in such areas as training and international exploration activities, for a time his AASP involvement was restricted to attendance, presenting research reports and chairing technical paper sessions at annual AASP meetings. However, after he left Amoco and became a Research Professor at ESRI at the University of South Carolina, in 1995 he was appointed to a 4-year term as Director at Large of AASP. Despite the occurrence of a number of medical problems, he attended the 1999 annual meeting of AASP in Savannah and also presented a research paper.

Unfortunately, his unexpected and tragic death on February 13 this year, just 12 days prior to his 65th birthday, has terminated an active, productive life and left a void that is impossible to fill.