Ahmed D. Kafadar, an entrepreneurial engineer who led the development of the explosive triggers used in automobile air bags, died of a heart attack on Jan. 17. He was 82 years old and lived in Englewood, Colo.
Mr. Kafadar earned a master’s degree from the Colorado School of Mines in 1943 and then went on to the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he worked on Government-financed ballistics research.
Mr. Kafadar applied his knowledge of ballistics to develop so-called life-saving explosive devices — first used in ejection seats for jet fighter planes and later as air-bag triggers. And he built a sizable business from commercializing those innovations.
Mr. Kafadar was the chairman of OEA Inc. in Englewood, a company with annual sales of more than $200 million and nearly 2,000 employees.
”Ahmed Kafadar was a pioneer in developing this technology for the aerospace field and then carrying that technology into the automotive industry,” said Robert Bartels, an industrial products analyst with William Blair & Company, a securities firm in Chicago.
Mr. Kafadar immigrated to the United States from Turkey in 1939. At the time, World War II had begun in Europe and the Turkish Government sent 50 of the nation’s most promising university students, including Mr. Kafadar, to America for safety and advanced education.
Mr. Kafadar, who became a United States citizen in 1946, founded Ordnance Engineering Associates in 1957. The company, which changed its name to OEA in 1969, began as a specialized military contractor, designing and manufacturing explosive devices mostly for ejector seats on military jets.
The first nonmilitary application for the company’s technology was in the Boeing 747 airliner, where a small propellant explosive is used to unfurl the safety chutes that passengers slide down to evacuate the plane after an emergency landing. In 1986, after the Challenger disaster, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration chose OEA to help design an escape system for the Discovery space shuttle.
Mr. Kafadar, according to Mr. Bartels, the industry analyst, was ”a phenomenal engineer” whose no-frills style of operation enabled his company to weather the ups and downs of the aerospace industry.
In the late 1980’s, Mr. Kafadar seized on the opportunity to enter a large new market in the auto industry. He adapted OEA’s explosive technology for use in smaller devices needed to activate and inflate air bags, and he overhauled his company for high-volume production.
As a manager, Mr. Kafadar had an uncommon appetite for work, arriving at the company offices at 5:30 A.M. each day, even the day before he died, noted his son, Charles Kafadar, the president and chief operating officer of OEA, who has succeeded his father as chief executive.
The elder Mr. Kafadar’s strategy and management style helped OEA to more than double its sales and profits over the last four years.
Mr. Kafadar is survived by his second wife, Claudia, of Englewood, and four children. His first wife, Maryanna, died in 1986. Mr. Kafadar’s four children are Charles, of Littleton, Colo.; Shirene, of Golden, Colo.; Karen, of Englewood, and James, of New York.
Steve Lohr, NY Times, Jan. 31, 1998
