Donald J. Graham, 80, died peacefully on January 29, 2013, surrounded by family after a long struggle with pneumonia and COPD. Don earned a B.S. and M.S. in food science and technology from Michigan State University. He began his career at the Green Giant Company in LeSueur, MN, followed by the William Underwood Company, the Pet Corporation, the Sverdrup Engineering Company, where he was designated a Sverdrup Fellow, the corporation's highest award for technical achievement, and Jacobs Engineering. In 1999, Don launched Graham Sanitary Design Consulting as president. He performed numerous plant audits and has been in hundreds of food processing plants.

Don's accomplishments include being on the Editorial Advisory Board and frequent author for Food Safety Magazine and being a member of the Institute for Food Technologists and the International Association for Food Protection. He has authored over 35 articles on sanitary design and exceptionally appreciated chapters for books on hygienic food manufacturing, in which he emphasized the importance of mindset as the key factor for achieving food safety. He advocated this concept at every opportunity in presentations, in seminars and in his articles that achieving a safe food supply was about mindset. Don maintained that this was the strategic imperative, for all supply chain partners, to bring food safety and hygienic design to the forefront and to develop the methods for achieving that end.

Don was a visionary and a great force in driving hygienic design principles across the manufacturing supply chain. Mindset is a simple thought but a great perspective on what is required for making the food supply safe. Anyone working with Don walked away with this important message.

Don is survived by his wife of 48 years, Dorothy, his two sons Christopher and Jonathan, and two grandchildren Emiko and Tomoki Graham.