Donald Gumpertz Obituary

Donald Gumpertz, founder and president of Industrial Electronic Engineers, passed away on April 28, at his home in Toluca Lake, CA at the age of 93. A pioneer in the field of digital displays, and holder of seventeen basic patents in automation fulfillment and display technologies, he started IEE in 1946. By the 70s over 400 were employed in its Van Nuys factory. Don was an avid sailor, a member of L.A.Yacht Club, California Yacht Club, and the Cruising Club of America. His Cal 40 sailboat Tangent placed third in the L.A. to Honolulu TransPac yacht race. He won the California Yacht Club's Commodore's Cup. He circumnavigated the globe in his motor yacht Westward. A lifelong radio amateur, call sign K6OF, he built his first ham radio station at the age of 14, obtained his unrestricted commercial radio operator's license at age 15, and worked at radio stations KDB in Santa Barbara and KRE in Berkeley as engineer/announcer while studying electrical engineering at UC Berkeley. Born on June 22, 1918, Don was raised in Oxnard, CA. He was a longtime supporter of the L.A. Chamber Orchestra, St. Joseph's Hospital, and the Coast Guard Foundation.
He leaves his wife Margaret Kendrick Gumpertz; three brothers, Ben, Gordon, and Robert Gumpertz, and three daughters, Sandra Whitman, Janis Iceland, and Marcia Gumpertz. Memorials to Disney Family Cancer Center at St Joseph's Hospital.

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Published by Los Angeles Times on May 13, 2012.

Memories and Condolences
for Donald Gumpertz

3 Entries

V. Zema

July 2, 2022

It was a pleasure to work for Don in the 80s. We had a great team, designed great products, and made lifelong friendships. RIP Mr. Gumpertz, thanks for everything.

Roger Winston Bray, Architect

November 19, 2021

As a client and as a friend, Donald Gumpertz excelled being a gentleman. It was a pleasure to work with him on the addition and remodel of his Toluca Lake home. Every conversation with him was thoughtful, enlightening, and just plain fun. He made the world a better place to live in!

Pete Baron

May 13, 2012

Dear Family,

Please accept my condolences on your Dad's, brother's or husbands passing.I tried to reach Don a couple of times during the past year (most recently on visiting my grandson in at Westmont College in Montecito in March) to see how he was doing, but he didn't respond, confirming earlier impressions via IEE that he was not well

My name is Pete Baron, and I am past director of the LA Chapter for the Society of Information Displays (17 years). I was also an engineer at Hughes Aircraft company when we decided to use the lenticular lens IEE readouts in our NTDS system - starting a business relationship that was mutually beneficial for many years.

I had great respect for Don as an engineer, as a manager and as a loyal supporter of SID. He was an amazingly versatile engineer, his reach covering a wide variety of disciplines, and making contributions in many areas. I wish I had a copy of the presentation he gave at one of our meetings about four years ago (Anne was with him at the time) where he covered the variety of projects that he initiated and was involved in. As a manager he ran a company that over a fifty years of advances in displays has managed to navigate the treacherous waters of major upheavals in technology as well as the continuous, and during the past decade tumultuous, changes in the displays industry. Very few of the industry names that I was familiar with when I started my career at Hughes are still around - but under his leadership Industrial Electronics Engineers was nimble enough to survive and prosper all those years.

Don was a great supporter of SID. He encouraged his engineers to attend meetings, and allowed his general manager Rich Pleasant to participate in our chapter leadership to provide us wit managerial expertise. He hosted several plant tours to give the local display community learn about how the industry was evolving. He was also generous; twice over a period of four years in the late nineties (I believe) he matched our $2500 donation to UCLA to encourage R&D under Professor Yang.

I appreciated his approachability, his friendly demeanor and his support of the local SID chapter activities, and I will always hold him in high regard. He will be missed; I will miss him.

P.s: I just realized that I had submitted a nomination for An SID Entrepreneurship Award to SID about six ? years ago. I will try to chase down the documentation which did a great job of summarizing his many accomplishments. If you happen to run across his submittal to us in his records, please save it - in case I can't retrieve the official submittal.

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