David Joseph Melville, a loving family man, and chairman and founder of the WinterWyman Companies, passed away early Monday, February 19, 2018 at age 79. He was in the company of family and close friends at his longtime Bedford home during his final moments.

Father, boss, friend, philanthropist, golfer, social activist, METCO parent, Marine aviator, Double Eagle, Red Sox fan, Brigham's frappe lover, proud liberal, unwavering moral compass—there are many ways to describe Dave, but above all else, he was a committed partner to his wife Joan. The two met as Boston College students in November, 1958, (on the night before the big Holy Cross football game), and the rest, as Dave would say, was history.

He often told his five children and their families that his chance meeting with Joan—who would become a teacher in Bedford—completely changed his life. With her alongside him, they spent the next six decades changing the lives of others. Dave's compassion, and commitment to making the world a better place, stretched far past his family and friends. It also reached beyond the halls of WinterWyman, the Waltham-based talent acquisition firm he founded in 1972. It was rooted in his ability to understand and overcome his own biases, to truly consider other people's viewpoints, and to open his heart—and doors—to everyone from the kid next door to Muslim immigrants from Africa.

Dave was the youngest of six children born to the Arthur and Isabelle Melville. His father served as General Manager of Boston College in the late 1940s, and Dave grew up in Newton Highlands, idolizing his older siblings, William, Mary, Eleanor, Tom, and Arthur. He inherited his love for Brigham's ice cream, work ethic, and penchant for quoting old Irish sayings from his father. He inherited his empathy from his mother. At the urging of his father, Dave enrolled at Boston College High School, where he played on the hockey team and struggled to earn passing grades before graduating, after five years, in 1957. He spent his free time as a janitor at B.C.—ultimately becoming living proof one of of his favorite sayings: "Always be kind to the janitor, you never know when you'll be working for him."

At B.C., Dave showed his budding entrepreneurial spirit as chairman of the Class of 1961 Senior Gift committee by raising an unprecedented $70,000 in pledges, which amounts to more than $570,000 in today's money. He also showed his good taste by asking Joan to marry him. Upon graduation, Dave entered the U.S. Marine Corps as a second lieutenant and became a helicopter pilot. The couple's first two kids, David Jr. and Michael, were born before he left the Marines in 1966 at the rank of captain. Dave and family then moved to Foxboro, where daughters Joanne and Sue and son Greg were born, He took a job there selling industrial oil for a short time before entering the personnel placement world.

In 1970, the family moved to Bedford, and two years later Dave founded WinterWyman, near the intersection of Winter and Wyman streets in Waltham. It would become one of the northeast's largest staffing companies, and today is often ranked as one of the "best places to work" in the Boston area. On the side, he and Joan became vocal civil rights protestors, and ardent volunteers for Democratic political causes. The kids were often "volun-told" to help them hand out campaign leaflets door-to-door.

Each summer, the family vacationed on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, and in 1980, Dave and Joan bought a summer (and winter weekend) home in Wolfeboro. Dave loved making boat trips across the lake to Center Harbor to visit his brother Bill and family, and tow the kids water skiing past sundown. He also avidly began playing golf, and joined Woodland Golf Club in Newton.

Professionally, Dave's business arc followed the expansion, and sometimes severe up-and-down cycles, of the high-tech industry in the Boston area. He saw high-tech's immense potential well before the age of home computers and the Internet boom, and shrewdly angled his business to specialize in the sector in its infancy in the state. In the 1990s, as the kids graduated from college, then began moving out of (and sometimes back into) the house, and then getting married, Dave started volunteering with Nativity Prep, a tuition-free Jesuit middle school for low-income boys in Boston. He eventually became a trustee, and the school's gym now bears his name. Fittingly, he also joined the board of directors of B.C. High. There, he started the Melville Family Summer Institute in honor of Joan. For two weeks every summer, the program encourages the professional development of 18 B.C. High teachers in fields of study to help confront the world's complex changes and reach beyond traditional core subjects.

Dave never retired from his work, but decreased his role in recent years, as he and Joan divided their time between New England and Naples, Florida, where they enjoyed golfing with a small but tight-knit group of friends, and welcoming their ever-expanding family of kids, in-laws, and 11 grandchildren as guests. Dave survives in the love and memory of many people, particularly Joan, and their family: Dave Jr., Kip, Emily, and Hannah Melville of Massachusetts; Michael, Lynn, Max, and Sam Melville of Massachusetts; Joanne, Neil, Colin, and Madeline Amidon of Maine; Sue, Matt, Grace, Molly, and Rose Kiley of Massachusetts; and Greg Melville and Ann Marie Johnson, and Kai and Greer Melville of Massachusetts.

Dave liked to sing, "Turn out the lights, the party's over." But in his case, it's not over yet. His life will be celebrated with a wake at the Douglass Funeral Home at 51 Worthen Road, Lexington MA on Wednesday February 21 ^st from 4:00-8:00 PM. A funeral mass will be held at 10:00 AM on Thursday, February 22 ^nd at St Brigit Church, 2001 Mass Ave in Lexington. In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation to the Saint Boniface Haiti Foundation , 383 Elliot St., Newton Upper Falls, MA 02464; Boston Nativity Preparatory School , 39 Lamartine Street, Jamaica Plain, MA, 02130; or the Melville Family Summer Institute, ℅ Boston College High School , 150 Morrissey Blvd. Boston, MA, 02125.

Private interment at Shawsheen Cemetery in Bedford.