David J. Vetter of Goleta, California passed away on Wednesday, April 17, 2019. He was born in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, June 21, 1948, the son of Carolyn and Elroy Vetter who preceded him in death. Elroy passed away when David was a young boy and Carolyn married the loving Pastor Alvin Spaude who has also passed. David is survived by three children, Christy Pochop, Tony Cabral, and David Cabral, four grandchildren David Pochop, Ashlyn Pochop, Cade Cabral, and Jillian Cabral, sister Mary Hausauer, Appleton, WI, and three brothers Thomas Vetterm, North Fond du Lac, WI, Joel Vetter, Arbor Vitale, WI, Mark Vetter, West Bend, WI. David was married to Peggy Vetter who he now joins in Heaven.
David received a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison campus in 1972. He also held an associate degree in Applied Science in Electronic Communications from the Milwaukee School of Engineering.
In 1974, Dave began working at Delco Electronics as a systems engineer and was assigned to the M1 battle tank project. While on the M1 project he was responsible for the error analysis simulation of this project. In 1977, Dave was re-assigned to the Computer engineering group. From 1977 to 1984 Dave was the lead engineer for Magic IV memory and I/O design. During this time at Delco, Dave was involved in large-scale projects for the Defense Department and was the lead engineer on many of the designs.
In 1988, Dave as a founding employee of the Vetronix Corporation. Dave was responsible for the design of a new automotive hand held tester called the Tech 1. The Tech 1 became an outstanding success in the automotive diagnostic community. As a manager of the engineering design group at Vetronix he was responsible for numerous Vetronix products including the 5-Gas Analyzer, EDLS, IDLS, MTS5100, MTS4100, Consult II, Candi, CRD, and many others.
Dave was a very active member of his church, Our Redeemer Lutheran. He participated in choir, built the church’s sound system and could always be counted on to lend a helping hand whenever needed.
Dave was a man of faith, great commitment, and loyalty. He will be sadly missed by all his family and those who had the opportunity to call him a friend.
Funeral service 11:00 am, Tuesday, April 23rd at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, 770 Vala Drive, Santa Barbara, CA 93111. Burial will be at Santa Barbara Cemetery following service.
Arrangements entrusted to Welch-Ryce-Haider Funeral Chapels.
