David Lee Breton

David was born in Bartow, Florida to Henry Breton and Dorothy Whatley. In grade school in Bartow, David was on the swim team as a breast stroke swimmer and on the individual medley team. David also played football as linebacker. He was small for the position, but was very disciplined, competitive, and aggressive as a player. He grew up working in the Breton family restaurant.

David paid his way through college at the University of Florida working in restaurants. He obtained his bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Florida in 1963. After graduating David went to work for Union Carbide in Tennessee.

During his time in college in Gainesville, he was introduced to Frances Daniel who became the love of his life and they were married in 1964. In Oak Ridge, Tennessee they had two children, David Jr and Jeanette. They decided to move back down to Florida to be closer to family and further his education to redefine his career path. David went back to University of Florida and completed his Master's degree and Doctorate degree in Chemical Engineering at University of Florida.

In December 1975, he began working at Dow Chemical Company's Louisiana Division, and began a career in process design and modeling that would last 33 years. David eventually started work on the Louisiana Gasification Technology Inc. (LGTI) clean burning coal processes, the largest R&D project ever undertaken by Dow. He was at the heart of the work that created an interactive process simulation program to model the gasification process, and continued to refine the program as the technology progressed from bench scale to the first commercial plant processing thousands of tons per day of coal at the LGTI plant at Louisiana Division in 1987. This plant led to another larger facility, integrated with an existing facility to create the cleanest coal-fired power plant in the world as part of a Department of Energy demonstration program. Eventually this led to plants built around the world.

For decades 'Dr. Dave' guided both the LGTI technology and his coworkers throughout all the research and technology implementation proving the LGTI process was a viable solution in the energy field. He was named in numerous patents and in 2007, he was honored with the Gasification Technology Council's Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 2008, he retired in Houston so that he could travel the globe and spend time with his wife Frances and family. Although work played a very important aspect of his life, he also enjoyed hunting, fishing, traveling, playing cards, and spending time with family and friends.

He is survived by his son David L. Breton Jr.; daughter Jeanette Breton and her husband Mike Hinkle; grandchildren Sabrah Breton, Cameron Hinkle, Braden Hinkle, Cara Breton, Nicole Breton, Bridget Davidson; Sister Nina Taylor, Great grandchildren Zariya Breton and Adelyne Breton-Mata and many more relatives and friends.

A memorial service will be held at 10:00 AM on Friday, June 16, at the Lakewood Methodist Church (11330 Louetta Rd., Houston, TX). In lieu of flowers the family would like to ask for donations to the Alzheimer's Association (https://www.alz.org/get-involved-now/donate).