David Warren McKENZIE

McKENZIE, David Warren
David Warren McKenzie of Austin passed away Wednesday, December 14, 2016, after a brief illness. He was 73. David was born in Bryan, Texas to Joseph David McKenzie and Helen Corinne Easters McKenzie. In later years he lived in Paris and Dallas, Texas. At the University of Texas, David earned a BS in Zoology. After graduation he achieved the rank of Captain while serving in the United States Air Force, Strategic Air Command, as Electronic Warfare Officer.
David began exploring caves with the UT Speleological Society in the early 1960s and soon developed Ellipse, a software program for plotting cave surveys on large mainframe computers. In further studies at the University he earned a joint MS in Physics and Statistics. His thesis in 1977 was "The Analysis and Adjustment of Survey Networks."
By the 1990s David began to create Walls, a program for personal computers which is now being used for mapping large cave systems in several countries around the world. He has made Walls, the pinnacle of his life's work, available to all interested users without cost.
http://www.texasspeleologicalsurvey.org/software/walls/Walls_manual.pdf
In support of the Texas Speleological Survey, David also created Wallsmap to help maintain data on Texas caves and contribute to the protection of aquifers and endangered species.
David McKenzie was a kind and compassionate soul who loved Nature and Science in their many manifestations. Up to the last month of life, he dedicated his vast intellect and curiosity to understanding the mysteries of the Universe. On a daily level he was also hugely generous, even to those he'd never met, in guiding them through complex programming code or in sorting out the puzzles of their troubled computers. He was always willing to help anyone who wanted to advance the world's knowledge of caves.
David is survived by his sister, Martha Helen McKenzie; his aunt Jo McKenzie; and cousins in Victoria, Waxahachie, Estes Park, Larkspur, CO, and Mesa, AZ. He will be deeply missed by all of us, as well as by countless cave explorers who have shared his mapping adventures and who continue to use his software to record the shapes of Earth underground.
A memorial service for David McKenzie will be planned in the Spring. Those wishing to make a tax-deductible donation please consider the TEXAS SPELEOLOGICAL SURVEY (TSS), Pickle Research Campus 176 / R4000, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712-1100 (info@texasspeleologicalsurvey.org).