Obituaries

David J. Allee, professor of resource economics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and leader of the Cornell Local Government Program, died April 17 in Ithaca. He was 71.

Allee's research interests ranged from natural resource and watershed management protection, to economic and community development, to telecommunications infrastructure and e-government development. Until his death, he served as president of the Adirondack Research Consortium, a group focused on environmental and water-quality issues within the Adirondack Park.

Born Sept, 13, 1931, in Caribou, Maine, he graduated from Cornell with a bachelor's degree (1953), a master's degree (1954) and Ph.D. (1960). He was a Fulbright fellow at Oxford University in 1957-58.

Allee served as a captain in the U.S. Air Force from 1954 to 1956. Before joining the Cornell faculty, he was an assistant professor of agricultural economics at the University of California-Berkeley, 1960-63, and served as an economist at the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics during the same period. He became an assistant professor at Cornell in 1963 and was promoted to associated professor in 1966. Allee was named a professor in 1971.

Allee authored or co-authored more 300 journal articles and reports, and he served as an adviser to about 185 graduate students in resource economics, public policy and water-quality issues.

In addition to his professional work, Allee served in the community on the Hangar Theater board for 23 years and, since 1958, he served on the Finger Lakes Library System board. He also was a trustee for the Village of Cayuga Heights and was chairman of the Cayuga Heights Board of Zoning Appeals.

Allee is survived by his wife, Martha; daughters Leslie, Lisa and Elizabeth; and six grandchildren.

Family and friends will celebrate his life June 1 at the First Unitarian Church, 208 E. Buffalo St. in Ithaca, at 2 p.m.

Franklin M. Loew, the Becker College president who was dean of Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine from 1995 to 1997, died April 22 in Brigham and Children's Hospital, Boston, of a rare form of cancer.

The 63-year-old Loew also had been dean of the Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, administrator at Johns Hopkins University and CEO of a start-up therapeutic foods company.

Donald F. Smith, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine since 1997, said: "Frank will be remembered at Cornell for his passion in advancing the understanding of that special role animals play in the lives of humans, the so-called human-animal bond, and for his efforts to ensure that the practice of veterinary medicine meets its obligations in the changing needs of society."

Off campus, Loew was better known for tabling controversial plans to build a medical-waste incinerator at the veterinary college and for forming a community-based task force to review alternative waste-management strategies. Recommendations from that committee ultimately led to plans for a non-burning, chemical-based facility that will be installed at the college.

Born in Syracuse, Loew earned his B.S. (1961) and D.V.M. (1965) degrees at Cornell and a Ph.D. in nutrition (1971) at the University of Saskatchewan. While in Canada, he worked for the commercialization of canola oil, making the product previously known as rapeseed oil a boon to crop farmers and a healthful addition to human diets. That achievement earned Loew a Queen's Jubilee Medal from the governor-general of Canada in 1977.

Loew is survived by a brother, William; his first wife, Mary (Moffat) Loew; a second wife, Deborah Digges; a daughter-in-law; two sons; and two stepsons.

The family asks that memorial donations be made to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) or to Becker College.