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OBITUARIES
OF BLESSED MEMORY
92 | APRIL 14 • 2022
Mrs. Small is survived by
her husband of 58 years,
Dr. Richard Small; sons and
daughters-in-law, Brian and
Amy Small, and Scott and
Jenny Small; grandchildren,
Eliana Small, Jared Small,
Jacob Small, Samantha Vine
and Evan Vine; brother-in-
law, Sheldon Alkon; other
loving relatives and friends.
Mrs. Small was the dear
sister-in-law of the late
Lorraine Alkon.
Interment was at
Beth El Memorial Park.
Contributions may be made
to Temple Israel, Susan and
Rabbi Harold Loss Early
Childhood Center Fund,
5725 Walnut Lake Road,
West Bloomfield, MI 48323;
or to a charity of one’s
choice. Arrangements by Ira
Kaufman Chapel.
DAVID “DAVE”
USHER, 92, of
Detroit, founder
and chairman of
Detroit’s Marine
Pollution Control
(MPC), a pioneer in cleaning
up oil spills throughout the
world, died peacefully in his
home April 7, 2022.
Usher, a world expert in
cleaning up oil spills, began
MPC in 1968. The company
assisted in the 1989 Exxon
Valdez spill in Alaska that
dumped more than 10 mil-
lion gallons of crude into
Prince William Sound.
He was assigned by for-
mer President George H.W.
Bush to lead the cleanup of
the Persian Gulf after Iraq’s
president, Saddam Hussein,
dumped oil into the gulf
during the Iraq War (Desert
Storm) in 1991.
Usher helped launch the
Spill Control Association of
America (SCAA), of which
he served as president for
many years. He was also
president of the International
Spill Control Organization
(ISCO); a director of
the Marine Response
Alliance; vice chairman of
the American Society for
Testing Materials (ASTM);
and director and past pres-
ident of the Liquid and
Industrial Waste Haulers and
Processors.
Usher’s first career was
in music. He worked as an
A&R man for Argo Records,
producing jazz greats such as
James Moody, Amhad Jamal
and Yusef Lateef. He enjoyed
a 50-year friendship with
the great jazz trumpeter,
Dizzy Gillespie. He traveled
the world with Gillespie and
produced some of the trum-
peter’s music and was a part-
ner in Gillespie’s label, Dee
Gee Records.
Besides the Exxon Valdez
and Iraq projects, MPC
assisted in Hurricane Katrina
in 2005 — the costliest nat-
ural disaster in U.S. history
— and the oil spill in 2010
in which a 30-inch pipeline
ruptured near Marshall,
Michigan, and contaminat-
ed Talmadge Creek and the