Obituaries

Peter B. McWhiteContracting Executive

Peter Bartow McWhite, 66, the president and chief executive of Rockville-based Engineering Insights, a company that mostly did defense contracting work, died Dec. 7 at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego after his car collided with another.

A spokesman for the California Highway Patrol said Mr. McWhite was driving east on state Highway 52 in San Diego County when he had an apparent heart attack. The spokesman said Mr. McWhite's car drifted into oncoming traffic. Mr. McWhite was the only person injured, and the incident remains under investigation.

After Naval service in the 1960s, Mr. McWhite became a specialist in operations research -- a branch of mathematical analysis -- at the Center for Naval Analysis and General Research Corp. He founded Engineering Insights about 1990.

The son of a Naval officer, Mr. McWhite was born in Harrisonburg, Va., and raised in Annapolis. He was a 1958 graduate of Annapolis High School and a 1962 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.

He went on to graduate from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and received a doctorate in operations research from the University of Florida in 1973.

A Vietnam War veteran, he left active duty in 1970 and retired from the Naval Reserve in 1991 as a captain.

A Potomac resident, he was a member of Faith United Methodist Church in Rockville and a former president of the Potomac-Bethesda Rotary Club.

He volunteered with Montgomery Hospice until his multiple sclerosis prevented him from continuing.

His first wife, Anne McClaughry McWhite, whom he married in 1962, died in 1985.

Survivors include his wife of 19 years, Melinda Falgout McWhite of Potomac; two children from his first marriage, John F. McWhite of Denver and Mary M. Teather of Elkton, Md.; a daughter from his second marriage, Claire D. McWhite of Potomac; a sister, Martha M. Johnson of Rockville; and two grandchildren.

Florence A. WhiteFBI Specialist

Florence A. White, 79, a former Washington resident who was an intelligence research specialist for the FBI, died Dec. 11 at the Samaritan Keep Home in Watertown, N.Y. She had Parkinson's disease.

Miss White was born in Scranton, Pa., and attended schools in Scranton until the family moved to Utica, N.Y.

In 1950, she moved to Washington, where she joined the FBI. While working, she graduated from Georgetown University, and she received a master's degree in liberal studies there in 1983. She retired from the FBI in 1992, after 43 years.

She was a member of St. Matthew's Cathedral in the District.

She moved to Watertown to join her two sisters in 2003.

Survivors include her sisters, Margaret M. White and Helen R. White; and a brother, Alfred J. White of Washington.