Post Messenger Recorder -

David W. Green, New Glarus, Wisconsin, passed away unexpectedly on June 13, 2019, in Passau, Germany, while on a cruise on the Danube River with his wife, Susan (LeVan). Dave was born in Beckley, West Virginia, on March 13, 1944, to Bernard and Alberta Green.

He attended Marsh Fork High School, earned a B.S. and M.S. in Wood Science from West Virginia University and a PhD in Wood Science from Syracuse University of New York (SUNY). While in college, Dave served in the U.S. Army Reserves for five years. He moved to Canada to work for Domtar on special research projects on paper and lumber. In the evenings, Dave completed his PhD dissertation, earning his PhD in early 1978. The later part of 1978, he accepted a teaching professorship at Virginia Polytechnical Institute in Blacksburg, Virginia. In 1980, he moved to Madison to work as a Research Engineer at the USDA Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory (FPL). At FPL Dave was instrumental in developing assigned engineering properties for lumber grades of softwood species.

Dave retired from FPL in 2004, and volunteered at Donald Park and Green's Prairie Cemetery, Wisconsin. Genealogy was his hobby and he wrote several genealogy books, not only on his and Susan's families, but also on families of small rural cemeteries in York Township in Green County, Wisconsin (Out of the Mountains, The Families of Green's Prairie Cemetery, and The Stories of the Stones).

Dave received many awards throughout his life – earning Eagle Scout Rank, the USDA Superior Science Award, the Forest Products Society Wood Engineering Life Time Achievement Award, and the Secretary of Agriculture's Distinguished Service Team Award.

Dave is survived by his wife, Susan; daughter, Cathy (Tim) Davidson; son, Daniel (Tammi); daughter, Virginia; stepson, Tim (Kristina) LeVan; and stepdaughter, Katherine (Michael) Hansen; seven grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Bernard and Alberta; as well as his former wife, Mary Lou (Hull).

Memorials are suggested to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for research on Parkinson's Disease.

A gathering of relatives and friends will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., on Saturday, August 31, 2019, at the Zentner-Beal Funeral Home, 29 Sixth Avenue, New Glarus, WI. Interment of David's cremains will conclude the gathering at the Swiss Church Cemetery in New Glarus.

A celebration of David's life will follow at Bailey's Run Vineyard, N8523 Klitzke Road, New Glarus, WI.

An online memorial with guestbook is available at http://www.bealfuneralhomes.com.