continued from page 91

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