Donald Wayne Leffler

Donald Wayne Leffler passed away 1/11/18 in Houston. Don is preceded by his parents Joseph (Joe) and Dorothy and Brother Gerald Leffler. Don is survived by his wife Claudia, son Eric, daughter in law Courtney, Sister Geraldine Bregar, sister in law Donna Leffler, nieces Lyndsey Leffler and Leana Redden and nephews Rodney Leffler and Scott Bregar.

Don was born 5/29/43 and raised by his parents Joe & Dorothy Leffler in Pueblo, Colorado. Joe withdrew from high school before graduation to support his family after the death of his parents. He was employed at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) Store and later became a guard. Joe was deployed to England during World War II leaving Dorothy to raise Don until the end of the war.

Joe was a quiet man with an incredible love and ability to build things and fix things, improvise and find solutions. He passed that ability on to Don. Of course, this interest also translated into cars, which was begun well before he was able to drive.

In high school Don was a somewhat unmotivated student. The steel mill was providing above average wages for workers in the community, which was attractive to many of his friends but not much upward mobility. Thankfully he was inspired by a teacher who saw his potential and Don set goals to attend college. He managed to improve his grades enough in his last year to be accepted to the University of Colorado in Boulder majoring in Aerospace Engineering. In high school he worked during the summer for CF&I. While attending college he worked weekends on the Union Pacific Railroad as a Yardmaster to help with college expenses. He and Claudia met at the University in 1963. His first engineering job was with Pratt & Whitney Aircraft in West Palm Beach, FL (certainly not influenced by his Florida raised, soon to be wife) beginning in August, 1965 as a Test Engineer in the Applied Research Department. Don and Claudia were married in November 1965. Claudia’s dowry was a very old Peugeot (purchased for $300) with a leaky sun roof requiring metric tools.

Don’s first assignment at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft was for a US Government funded NASA research and development project. He helped design, install, test and develop a full-size burner for a possible future US made supersonic transport airplane. The testing and development work, done with the assistance of four other engineers, lasted for one year and took place at the NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

In 1971, tired of the ups and downs of working for a large company dependent on huge government contracts either being won or lost involving large layoffs if lost, Don decided to look for another job. After sending out hundreds of resumes to overcome the stigma of being an Aeronautical Engineer, he followed a friend at Pratt & Whitney who had found a job in Houston. He found a job with De Laval Turbine Inc. The title on his business card was “Engineer”.

In 1973 he took a leap of faith with a small upstart company, Power Systems Engineering, Inc., founded in 1968 by Albert Smith Jr. and Tom McMichael. This was a smaller close-knit entrepreneur group with great opportunity along with higher risk.

The company’s first contract was to build and operate a 300 Megawatt combined cycle power plant named Salt Grass Power Facility in Freeport, Texas. In April, 1971 this world’s largest single gas turbine plant, serving Dow’s Texas Division became operational. Projects over his years of employment included the CoGen Lyondell plant, which went on line in 1985 in Channelview, Texas, eventually transmitting 465 megawatts to Texas Utilities and 1.15 million pounds of steam per hour to the adjacent Arco Chemical plant. Early in 1989, PSE opened three more facilities in Kern, California, that were similar to Corona, a 47 megawatt cogeneration plant in Corona County, California started in 1988. PSE owned about 20 percent of those cogeneration plants, each of which could produce 48 megawatts of electricity and 100,000 pounds of steam per hour. They supplied electricity to Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a major utility, and steam to Occidental Petroleum Corporation. By the end of 1989, PSE owned or operated seven cogeneration plants.

His titles at Power Systems over the years included Manager Mechanical Department, Manager Projects, Vice President Projects and Designs, Senior Vice President Engineering & Construction, Senior Vice President Engineering, Construction & Operations, President. He was President of a subsidiary Power Operating Co. When Destec purchased Power Systems he was Senior Vice President, Project Acquisitions.

In 1977 Don and Claudia found a heavily wooded 1.5 acre lot in NW Houston complete with a huge barred owl, whose fly over the day of inspection of the property sealed the deal on purchasing the lot!!! Don drug out his Professional Engineer stamp and became the architect/general contractor and got a construction loan from the bank. Many thanks to his friends and co-workers who helped make the house a reality from digging the beams to doing electrical, etc, etc.. Joe and Dorothy were there to help from time to time!!! This was the start of his commercial home builder dream.

Their son Eric was born in November, 1983. As soon as he was old enough to hold a hammer, he busied himself with nailing (at least 50 nails in the end of a 4x4 in hours) and learning from his dad about how things work and how to build things. This is serving him well in his contracting company ELSS Total Home Solutions. He shares Don’s love of cars to this day.

After Power Systems went public, they were purchased by Destec in 1989. Destec was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dow Chemical Company. Don then decided to change professions and become a Home Builder.

Unfortunately in August, 1990 he had a seizure which proved to be caused by a malignant brain tumor. We are forever thankful to Jule Smith, the wife of Albert Smith, the founder of Power Systems. Jule was the President of the Blue Birds Circle for Pediatric Neurology (an organization to help underprivileged children get neurological help) at the time, arranged an appointment with Robert Grossman at Methodist, world renowned neurosurgeon who performed the surgery to extract the tumor. Though Don’s prognosis was dyer after the surgery, he survived for 28 more years.

After the brain surgery and during ongoing radiation and chemotherapy he started Nature Concept Homes and purchased a housing development in North Houston, Inway Forest of Northampton 1and developed the subdivision before retiring.

In the late 90’s, he had several heart surgeries due to an aneurysm and faulty heart valve.

After retiring from the building business Don invested his energy in sculpture. In particular, those barred owls. A number of a life size bronze series have been sold.

His amazing life was a story of soldiering on no matter the challenge. The glass was always ½ full. He will always be remembered for his big smile no matter what he was facing!!

Memorial Service

The memorial service will be held February 2, 2018 at 10AM at Grace Presbyterian Church at 10221 Ella Lee Lane in the Founders Chapel. The church is on the east side of West Beltway 8 just north of Westheimer. A reception at the church will follow the service. A special thanks to Judy Dewey, an active member of Grace, for coordinating this service and contacting many of Don’s friends.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that contributions be made to: The Blue Bird Circle, Attn: Treasurer, 615 West Alabama, Houston, TX 77006.