Tuesday, March 18, 2008
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
Jan E. FiskeClinical Psychologist
Jan E. Fiske, 57, a clinical psychologist with offices in Glen Burnie and Clinton, died March 7 of a heart attack at Howard County General Hospital. She lived in Columbia.
Dr. Fiske was born in Syracuse, N.Y., and grew up in Marcellus, N.Y. She received a bachelor's degree in history from Northeastern University in 1972 and a master's degree in clinical psychology from Loyola College in Maryland, in Baltimore, in 1983. She received a doctorate in clinical psychology from Widener University in 1995.
She opened her clinical psychology practice in 1983 and was still in practice at the time of her death.
Dr. Fiske was a member of the American Psychological Association and the Maryland Psychological Association and was a contributor to and former editor of the Maryland Psychologist.
She enjoyed exploring out-of-the-way communities and antique shops.
Survivors include her father, Neil V. Fiske of Blossburg, Pa., and a brother, Ronald N. Fiske of Fredericksburg.
-- Joe Holley
Joem Davis GaffneyFloral Designer, Lecturer
Joem Davis Gaffney, 96, who demonstrated and taught floral design for many years in the Washington area, died of pneumonia March 11 at Brooke Grove Retirement Village in Sandy Spring, where she lived.
Mrs. Gaffney was a native of Winston-Salem, N.C., and attended Salem Academy and Draughon's Business College in North Carolina. She moved to Washington in 1932 and worked for the National Recovery Administration. When that agency was abolished in 1935, she worked for the Works Progress Administration as secretary to the deputy administrator.
Mrs. Gaffney, a longtime Bethesda area resident, was a member of the Luxmanor Garden Club, the Army Distaff Foundation and the Leisure World Woman's Club. She also belonged to the Catholic Daughters of the Americas and the Greensboro, N.C., chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
She was a member of Bethesda Country Club and attended Our Lady of Grace Church in Silver Spring.
Her husband of 71 years, James Holmes Gaffney, a retired administrative law judge for the Interstate Commerce Commission, died in 2006.
Survivors include two children, James Michael Gaffney of Naples, Fla., and Joem Patricia Gaffney of Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.; two grandsons; and two great-grandchildren.
-- Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb
William H. PetersenPolice Administrator
William H. Petersen, 75, a police administrator and criminal justice consultant who an expert on court security, died March 4 of a heart attack at his home in Centreville.
Mr. Petersen organized security for the 1992 trial of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in Milwaukee. He also consulted with the Costa Rican government in 1993, after gunmen took the country's Supreme Court justices hostage.
He was born in Pocatello, Idaho, and was a political science graduate from Idaho State University in 1954. He also did graduate work in public administration at Wayne State University.
He worked for the Citizens Research Council of Michigan in Detroit before becoming secretary of the Board of Police Commissioners in St. Louis in the early 1960s. He was responsible for all police non-uniform operations, including the police academy, the crime lab, research and administration. He then returned to Idaho as director of the State Personnel Commission, where he helped create Idaho's first merit system for public employees.
He moved to the Washington area in 1970 and became vice president of Planning Research Corp., a consulting firm in Tysons Corner. He was in charge of criminal justice consulting. He later headed the criminal justice consulting division of the accounting firm Arthur Young and was director of the National Sheriffs' Institute.
From 1996 to 2006, Mr. Petersen was head of the worship department at Washington National Cathedral, where he arranged state funerals and other special events. He also was parish administrator at Church of the Holy Comforter in Vienna.
His marriage to Carole Taylor ended in divorce.
Survivors include a daughter, Jana McQuaid of Richmond; a brother; and two grandsons.
-- Joe Holley