David A. Leighty

David A. Leighty was born on December 5, 1948 in Huntington, West Virginia and raised in Proctorville, Ohio. Descended from the Scottish mathematician and scientist James Clerk Maxwell, David’s family enjoyed a long and storied history in southern Ohio (alongside the Hatfields & McCoys) as proprietors of an apple farming business in Rome Township. David’s mother, Dr. Edith Gardner Leighty, graduated from Ohio State University with a degree in Chemical Engineering and spent her career at the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio where Edith and David moved and where David attended high school.

A winner of the Westinghouse Science Talent Search Scholarship and Award, David attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on a full scholarship. While at MIT, David served as a member of the Backer and Senior House Athletic Committees and as chairman of both the Senior House and the Judicial Committee. He graduated in 1971 with a bachelor of science degree in Chemistry and Management.

David spent the first decade of his career at Instrumentation Laboratories, now part of Thermo Fisher, during which he traveled extensively, recruiting, training, and managing distributors, as well as developing new products and applications. David then joined CSPI as General Manager of Scanalytics, a start-up spin-off venture whose technology laid the foundation for today’s self-driving cars. In 1992, David was recruited to be President of Perma Pure, where he led the company through fifteen years of steady growth. Today, virtually every anesthesia machine in the world uses Perma Pure filters. David completed his career at Halma PLC, where he served as Group Acquisitions Executive for over ten years, retiring in 2018.

Though primarily a chemist and a businessman with a passion for science, David enjoyed many activities outside of work, including annual ski trips to Colorado with friends. Early in his career he worked at the New England Aquarium and was a lifelong, accomplished SCUBA diver, diving the Caribbean, Hawaii, and Australia. David enjoyed good food, fine wine, touring wine country with friends and delving into wine chemistry with winemakers.

David is survived by his son Frederick (Freddy) Jones, daughter-in-law Lindsey, grandchildren Oliver and Mackenzie, and long-term partner Jeanmarie Doyle Mergogey. He was preceded in death by his beloved wife of 36 years, Valerie.

A viewing will be held at Anderson & Campbell Funeral Home in Toms River, New Jersey on Friday October 29th from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM with a memorial service at 6:00 PM.

In lieu of flowers, donations in David’s honor may be made to the American Chemical Society or the American Cancer Society.