Obituaries

M. Paul ComuladaProcurement Officer, Lawyer

M. Paul Comulada, 86, who was a procurement officer with the Navy Department and the Federal Aviation Administration before opening a legal firm in Washington, died of a heart ailment Feb. 28 at Northwest Medical Center in Margate, Fla. He lived in Parkland, Fla.

Mr. Comulada spent 19 years with the Navy Department and was a naval negotiator and contracting officer before having oversight for electronics, missiles, weapons, power plants and facilities for naval aviation and ordnance.

He left the Navy in 1970 and joined the FAA as director of logistics. He was head of the procurement department in 1973 when he moved into private practice. In his own firm, he represented major federal procurement companies in agency and legal matters.

Mr. Comulada was born in Washington and graduated from high school in New York. He received an engineering degree from George Washington University in 1943 and served in the Navy during World War II in Japan.

After the war, he worked as an engineer with the Army Department and what was then known as the National Bureau of Standards until 1948. He went to law school at Georgetown University and graduated in 1950.

Among his honors was one from the FAA for distinguished leadership of the FAA's minority business program, which resulted in fuller participation of minorities in the achievement of the administration's mission.

In 1975, his wife, Barbara H. Comulada, died of a heart attack, and his daughter, Carmen Comulada, died of cancer.

Mr. Comulada returned to school and studied music and Spanish.

He moved from Great Falls to Florida in 1984, where he began a career in commercial real estate.

Survivors include a son, P. Albert Comulada of Parkland; a brother, John R. Comulada of Upper Marlboro; and two granddaughters.

-- Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb