Engineering Firm Founder W. David De Laureal Dies
Times Picayune 04-2-1996

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W. David de Laureal, retired president of de Laureal Engineers Inc., died
Friday of cancer at Mercy+Baptist Medical Center. He was 82.

Mr. de Laureal's company worked on many city, state and federal projects
including New Orleans City Hall and the Michoud Assembly Facility where
Chrysler Corp. built tanks. Later, booster rockets for the Saturn manned space
program and fuel tanks for the space shuttle were built there. Mr. de Laureal
worked with Boeing Co. on the rockets' production and testing.

Mr. de Laureal was born in Broussard and received an engineering degree from
Louisiana State University in 1934. He moved to New Orleans to join Fairbanks-
Morse & Co. and later managed the air-conditioning department at Gulf
Engineering.

During World War II, he was a captain in the Army Corps of Engineers,
stationed in the Persian Gulf and later Texas.

After the war, he started his own consulting engineering firm, later forming
the firm of de Laureal and Moses with engineer Warren G. Moses. With the
architectural firm of Mathes and Bergman, they built their own building at 929
Howard Ave.

After many years of partnership with Moses, Mr. de Laureal formed de Laureal
Engineers. In 1972, he sold the business to Walter-Kidde & Co. but remained as
a consultant for that company and later Guillot-Vogt Associates before
retiring.

He was a member of the World Trade Center, Plimsoll Club, Military Order of
World Wars, Society of American Military Engineers, Navy League, Sons of the
Revolution, Society of Colonial Wars, Ducks Unlimited, Pendennis Club,
Bienville Club, New Orleans Country Club, Southern and Pass Christian yacht
clubs and Soaring Society of America.

Survivors include his wife, Eva Wilkinson Allen de Laureal; two sons, W. David
de Laureal Jr. and Martin Rene de Laureal of Covington; two daughters, Carolyn
Anne Harrington of Natchitoches and Eva Marie Jeans of Houston; two brothers,
Thomas Hugh de Laureal of Lake Charles and Robert Todd de Laureal of Port
Arthur, Texas; two sisters, Celeste Boagni of Opelousas and Margaret Louise
Taylor of Natchitoches; and 10 grandchildren.

A Mass will be said today at noon at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home, 5100
Pontchartrain Blvd. Visitation will begin at 10 a.m. Burial will be in
Metairie Cemetery.