Daniel F. McDonald, 85, a founder of BDM International, a technical-services firm that became a major government contractor, died Jan. 16 at a nursing home in Cupertino, Calif. He had congestive heart failure.
The death was confirmed by a daughter, Frances M. DeSouza.
In 1959, Dr. McDonald and two physicist colleagues at Fordham University in New York — Joseph Braddock and Bernard Dunn — started what was then known as Braddock, Dunn and McDonald.
“In those days there was considerable opportunity for small companies with a strong scientific staff to provide a lot of direct help to the military in weapons-system analysis,” Mr. McDonald told The Washington Post in 1983.
The firm was initially based in New York and then at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. It moved to McLean in 1973.
The company — a provider of systems engineering, computer modeling and electronic controls for the development of weapons systems — rose to national prominence under chief executive Earle Williams in the 1970s and 1980s.
In 1988, BDM was sold to an aerospace division of Ford Motor for $425 million. Mr. McDonald, who was involved with the company’s strategic planning and technology research and development, retired about that time.
Subsequently, under the ownership of the Carlyle Group private equity firm, BDM was sold in 1997 to government contractor TRW for $925 million.
Daniel Francis McDonald was a New York City native and served in the Navy in the Pacific during World War II.
He was a 1950 graduate of Fordham, where he also received a doctorate in physics in 1959. He received a master’s degree in physics from Harvard University 1952. He was a McLean resident.
In 1988, Dr. McDonald, along with Dunn and Braddock , started the Potomac Foundation, a nonprofit public-policy organization.
Dr. McDonald served as the foundation’s president. He also wrote about defense security issues related to Central and Eastern Europe.
Survivors include his wife of 53 years, Maria Somkuthy McDonald of McLean; six children, Carla M. McDonald of Madison, Wis., Frances M. DeSouza of Darien, Conn., Daniel J. McDonald and Emeric J. McDonald, both of Mountain View, Calif., Maria D. McDonald of Tiburon, Calif., and Judith M. Moses of Orinda, Calif.; a brother; a sister; and 16 grandchildren.
— Adam Bernstein
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