David Allen was fond of teasing Headmaster Barry Koops. “You’re my boss, but I have seniority on you.” Dave had been hired as the assistant business manager just weeks before Barry came on board in 1990. His duties in the business office included paying the bills, keeping payroll, ordering textbooks and organizing the bookstore, handling the student activity fund for each grade, and keeping the school’s five buses running.
Despite being part of the original plan for the school to serve Boston and all its suburbs, the buses were a problem. They cost many thousands more to run than the school could reasonably charge the families using them. Dave laid out the numbers to the business manager, to Dr. Koops, and to the admissions team. Reluctantly they agreed that the school had to end bus service. For about 15 years after that, the school continued just one route, to and from Alewife Station to enable kids from the city to attend.
LCA grew rapidly in the 1990s, and plans came together for significant expansion. Dr. Koops had noticed Dave’s careful attention to detail, his practical knowledge of machines and materials, and his watchful eye on the bottom line. He asked him to take charge of the day-to-day workings of construction and the building in general, and changed his role to Facilities Manager. On a normal day Dave juggled several different projects at once, a variety he appreciated. His “just us folks” attitude helped him deal effectively with neighbors who were unhappy about the school’s growth and the accompanying traffic. On his own time, he kept detailed records of every change made to the building and grounds (there have been many!) and wrote them up into a narrative complete with diagrams and timeline. When the school bought the north campus, Dave tended to that property as well.
For about two decades of Dave’s long tenure, the school was almost constantly adding to or remodeling the building. Kirk Ware ’72, longtime trustee, and owner of the company that did most of the work, including transforming the athletic fields, says of Dave,
He was always a great interface between the school and the workers. Dave handled all the nuts and bolts of compliance with the conservation commission, such as making sure that testing was done, reports were filed, and the conditions of our approvals were complied with. This was extremely important because before long we would be back asking for another permit, and it made a huge difference that we consistently satisfied what the Town had requested the last time. Because Dave had his finger on the pulse of what was going on day to day in the building, he was an invaluable source of knowledge in planning when to perform various construction activities, since most of the work was done around an operating school.
David Allen is a humble man, easygoing, with a self-deprecating sense of humor, but confident in his skills. Nothing is too insignificant for his attention, and very little escapes it. He has worked tirelessly to make LCA’s physical space a clean, attractive, safe place of learning. He lives out the verse in I Corinthians, “Whatever you do, do it as unto the Lord.”
Written and edited by the story.lca.edu Timeline Team. To read more about the rich history of LCA and its faithful stewards who made LCA the place of excellence it is today, visit story.lca.edu.