David J. Sullivan

David Sullivan was born on July 24,1962 in Silver Spring, Md. and passed away at his residence on February 3,2010 at age 47. He is survived by his mother Lorraine Sullivan, brothers Dennis and Donald and pre-deceased by his father Eugene and sister Linda. Family members include brother Dennis with niece Caitlin, nephew Sean and wife Alisha with children Paige and Parker; brother Donald and wife Pam with nephews Chris and Timothy; brother-in-law Jerry Sullivan with nieces Jessi, Sherri and nephew Kelly. As the youngest member of a world-travelled family, he grew up in Germany, England and Australia. He finished high school at Sacred Heart College in Adelaide Australia and started his college education at UMBC (university of Maryland -Baltimore County) in Catonsville Md. After several semesters at UMBC he transferred to the Electrical Engineering program of the Univ. of Md.-College Park campus and graduated with a BS in electrical engineering. As a prelude to his graduation he did an internship with NASA at the Goddard Space Flight facility in Bowie Md. His work earned him a position post graduation in the NASA battery lab where he has worked for nearly 30 years. David has travelled to launch facilities in Florida, California, Japan and South America in support of the batteries on-board satellites and space vehicles. A long summer vacation in Greece on a sailing/travel cruise in 2002 was a journey he had many fond memories of. He continued to communicate with many of the new friends he met on that vacation. Dave has shared his love of working with kids at the Northern Virginia Therapeutic Riding Program (NVTRP.ORG) with work associates as well as family especially his nieces Jessi and Sherri. NVTRP is a non-profit organization dedicated to enriching the lives of children and adults with disabilities, youth-at-risk, and veterans through the challenging, physically-active sport of horseback riding. His love of the water is found in the many trips he took to the southern states for scuba diving and jet skiing. He spent many hours on his jet ski with both friends and family, many of whom have experiences (read as: "stories") to tell. Dave was always willing to help his mother with all things technical and his expertise made him a great support for many folks at the Charlestown retirement community. He lived, breathed and dreamt in i-mode (read as: he loved the Apple products), from his Mac to his i-pod. If you needed a problem solved of any technical nature, he was your man to see and he would step over all barriers to see that he could help. His inventive and uncommon ways of solving normal technical problems made him extremely valuable to all that knew him . Dave we will miss you.......