Co-Founder of Defense Firm, Philanthropist

Bernard J. Dunn, 84, one of the founders of the defense and technology contracting firm BDM International, died March 14 at Inova Fairfax Hospital of complications from an accidental fall at his home in Reston a month earlier.

Dr. Dunn, BDM's former chairman and chief scientist, joined with fellow Fordham University professors in 1959 to form Braddock, Dunn, and McDonald, which they later shortened to their initials.

The firm, based first in New York and then at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, moved to the Washington area in the early 1970s and became a highly successful business.

The firm played a major role in the development of anti-missile technology, tested weapons systems and performed rapid runway repairs for the military, studied the effect of large electromagnetic fields on U.S. aircraft and missiles and worked to enhance the Strategic Air Command's communications systems, according to a 1983 article in The Washington Post.

In 1986, Dr. Dunn became the first of the principals to retire. BDM was sold to Ford Motor Co. in 1988 and later was sold to TRW and then to Northrop Grumman.

Dr. Dunn was active in philanthropic and charitable causes in Northern Virginia, including his $10 million endowment of the Bernard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy at Shenandoah University in Winchester, which was named for his father, a pharmacist who died when Dr. Dunn was 10.

Bernard Joseph Dunn was born in New York City. He enrolled in Fordham University but dropped out during World War II to join the Army Air Forces. He served as a bombardier aboard a B-24 in the South Pacific and survived a plane crash on Biak Island in Indonesia.

Upon his return to the United States, he used three years' worth of savings to buy his mother a baby grand piano, which the family still owns.

He graduated from Fordham in 1947 and received a master's degree in physics from Columbia University in 1949. He studied at Fordham under physicist and Nobel laureate Victor Hess while working on his doctorate in physics, which was awarded in 1958.

Dr. Dunn, who married the daughter of another Fordham physics professor in 1952, taught at his alma mater for a year before leaving to form BDM with Daniel F. McDonald and Joseph V. Braddock.

After his retirement, Dr. Dunn and his family moved to Middleburg.

Dr. Dunn established the Bernard J. Dunn Eminent Scholars Endowment in Information Technology at George Mason University, and he was a supporter of Loudon Hospital, the Loudon County Symphony and Notre Dame Academy. With his former business partners, he helped create the Potomac Foundation. He was also a member of Sigma Xi, the scientific research society, and St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Reston.

Survivors include his wife of 56 years, Anne-Marie Dunn of Reston; four children, retired Army Col. Bernard J. Dunn of Dubai, William T. Dunn of Houston, Anne-Marie Hobbs of Oakton and Robert J. Dunn of Arlington; and seven grandchildren.