Family and friends are invited to a visitation from 3 to 5 p.m. on Thursday, March 28 at Barranco & Sons, P.A. Severna Park Funeral Home.  A funeral mass will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday, March 29 at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Severna Park. Interment is private. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to Hospice of the Chesapeake, 90 Ritchie Highway, Pasadena, Md., 21122.

David "Alan" Coffin passed away on March 18 following a battle with heart disease.  He was born in Fleetwood in Lancashire, England, the son of George William and Alice Haslam Coffin. He served in the Royal Air Force. An electrical engineer, he graduated from Xaverian College in Manchester, England and later in his career earned a master's degree in computer systems management from the University of Maryland.

His career took him and his family to Los Angeles, California and elsewhere in the U.S.; Cheam in Surrey, England; Algiers; Mallorca, Spain; and to Severna Park, where he lived for 43 years until his passing. He retired at age 80 from PAE Applied Technologies, where he was a senior engineer and supervisor for the Telemetry Data Center.  The center supported control rooms during flight testing operations in the Atlantic Test Ranges at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland.

He led the team that developed the fourth-generation, real-time telemetry processing system and interactive analysis and display system at the test facility. He also led the development of a test facility within the Presidential Helicopter Support Facility to support development of a new Presidential Helicopter to replace the current aging fleet. Other projects included the design and development of vehicles used to remotely capture telemetry data for flight engineers. He was a member of the Range Directorate project team formed to upgrade the U.S. Coast Guard Vessel Traffic System control centers and remote site monitoring systems for various ports around the United States.

Alan was a determined runner, finishing more than 20 marathons in the U.S., Canada and England. He enjoyed aviation, traveling, sailing on the Magothy River and Chesapeake Bay, and his dogs.

He is survived by his wife, Ellen; his children Paul Coffin (Stephanie) of Gaithersburg, Christine Coffin of Bend, Ore., Adrian Coffin (Sharon) of Annandale, Va., and Simon Coffin of State College, Pa.; his brother George of Brisbane, Australia; and by his grandchildren Kelsey, Brian, Andrew, Stephen, Josephine and Madeline.

Family and friends are invited to a visitation from 3 to 5 p.m. on Thursday, March 28 at Barranco & Sons, P.A. Severna Park Funeral Home.  A funeral mass will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday, March 29 at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Severna Park. Interment is private.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to Hospice of the Chesapeake, 90 Ritchie Highway, Pasadena, Md., 21122.

Online condolences may be made on www.barrancofuneralhome.com