David Carter McGarvey

David Carter McGarvey died March 9, 2025, at Linden House in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he had lived for four years. He was born on June 17, 1931, in East St. Louis, Illinois, the son of Philip C. and Helen Ritchie McGarvey. His father worked for Kresge (later K Mart) and as he moved up through the organization, the family moved from one state to another, thus David attended many different schools throughout the Midwest. He attended Southwest High School in Edina, Minnesota, for two years and graduated from Benson High School in Omaha in 1949. In 1953, he graduated summa cum laude from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, with a double major in mathematics and physics.

From Carleton, he went to Yale to work on a Ph.D. in mathematics where he was found by a recruiter from the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California. In 1957, he was offered a position with the organization with the provision he could continue to work on his doctoral dissertation. He moved his family to Santa Monica and received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1959. He continued to work for RAND until 1999, with a break from 1971 to 1980, to work with an independent team researching issues of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, ballistic missile defense, arms control, and game theory.

In 1984, he moved to RAND’s Washington, D. C. office where he represented the corporation at POET, an organization made up of experts from several “think tanks” working on special studies of missile defense.

He “retired” from RAND in 1999, and began consulting part time for RAND, the Department of State and other agencies, continuing his work on missile defense until he was in his late 80s.

David’s resume lists many papers, reports, studies and books he wrote or co-authored, but one of the papers became famous, much to his surprise when he learned many years later that it was well known. A paper he published in 1953 on Voting Paradoxes became widely known as “McGarvey’s theorem” and when he met other mathematicians at meetings, upon introducing himself, he was often asked, “Are you THE McGarvey?” And, yes, he was!

Other than his mathematical pursuits and maintaining his 1920s bungalow in Alexandria, David’s favorite activities were his many adventures with his seven grandchildren.

David married Ann Jeannette Williams during their junior year at Carleton. They had two children while studying at Yale. They divorced in 1972. He married Judith Taylor Peterson in 1977, who survives him. Also, surviving are his daughter Nancy Neill and husband David of Valencia, CA, two sons, Scott A. McGarvey of Dallas, TX, and Jonathan R. Peterson and wife Elizabeth of Charlottesville, VA; six grandchildren; three great grandchildren; and the many members of the McGarvey-Taylor-Peterson-Toney extended family. He was predeceased by his parents, his brother Bruce R. McGarvey, his grandson Patrick L. Ellerbroek, and former wife Ann McGarvey.