MS54: David A. Lucht Papers

David A. Lucht (/lʌkt/; born February 18, 1943) is an American engineer and noted fire safety expert. His diverse career was devoted to public service in government, academia and the nonprofit sector. He was the first professional engineer to serve as the Ohio State Fire Marshal; the first presidential appointee to serve in the United States Fire Administration and the first head of the graduate degree fire protection engineering program where he served for 25 years at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA.

In 1978, David Lucht was recruited by Worcester Polytechnic Institute to start up the Center for Firesafety Studies. In the initial years as Professor and Director of the new Center, he worked in parallel as Executive Vice President of Firepro, Incorporated, a Boston area consulting engineering firm. He transitioned to full-time status at the university in 1985.

Starting “from scratch” at WPI, he assembled the resources, faculty, staff and laboratory facilities to support a first-of-its-kind program of graduate study in fire protection engineering. The Master of Science degree was first offered in 1979 and the PhD in 1991.

Upon his retirement in 2005, WPI had graduated over 400 fire protection engineers from 26 countries. Graduates pursued careers in a host of employer settings ranging from consulting engineering firms, manufacturing industries and public utilities to product testing and research laboratories and codes and standards groups.