Alan Joseph Davignon, 74
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Alan Joseph Davignon (May 24, 1950-Oct. 13, 2024) was born and raised in North Adams, MA, the son of Blanche and Clifford Davignon. He was fortunate to travel extensively with his mom to visit his father who was working as an engineer in Vietnam.
He began skiing at the age of seven, at Dutch Hill Ski area in Heartwellville, VT where his mom would drop him off. “She was a seamstress at home and I was always underfoot.” Skiing became a life-long passion. In 1971 he competed in and won the NASTAR (NAtional STAndard Race) and was on ski teams at Drury High School and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He also coached the ski team at RPI and was a brother of the Delta Phi Fraternity there. He received a bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering and completed his Masters in Biomedical Engineering in 1974, then stayed to work on a doctoral dissertation; designing an artificial replacement for the anterior cruciate knee ligament. This path led to his job at K2 in Washington where he designed skis used in the Olympics.
His interests included skiing, working on and riding his motorcycle, hiking and exploring the northwest with his family, reading, home improvement, volunteering and eating chocolate chip cookies. More recently he looked forward to weekly meetings with close old friends and weekly visits from his granddaughter.
Alan was married to his love, Denise Renton and they have two children; Harrison and Kristen, a son-in-law Chris and a granddaughter Corinne. He had a sister Mimi Shields and brothers Richard and Robert Davies who predeceased him. His family includes sisters-in-law Pam Cadran, Ellen Quigley (John), Brother-in-law Robert Renton and numerous nieces and nephews and grand-nieces including Renee’, Bryan, Jane, Carrie-Ann and Shawn.
His services will be held at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Burien, WA on Friday November 8th at 11:30 am. His funeral arrangements through www.Emmickfunerals.com.Burial will be in North Adams MA at a later date.