Paul Witte, creative product designer and philanthropist, dies at 94

Paul Witte, 94, of New Hope, a creative industrial and product design engineer, local philanthropist, and cofounder of the 30-year-old Hepatitis B Foundation, died Saturday, Feb. 13, of complications from dementia at Buckingham Valley Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Newtown.

Mr. Witte ran his own design business, Originetics, Inc., out of his home until 2000 and focused for two decades on designing orthopedic knee and hip implants. In 1991, he and his wife, Jan Witte, joined Tim and Joan Block to start the Hepatitis B Foundation, now the nation’s leading nonprofit research and disease advocacy organization for hepatitis B.

Mr. Witte won awards for his designs from Industrial Design magazine and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He designed, among other things, mining equipment and weight scales in the 1960s; tennis racquets, air horns, and greenhouse structures in the 1970s; and political campaign buttons in the 2000s.

He also illustrated brochures and other literature for orthopedic implants in the 1980s and ‘90s. “He was always thinking,” his wife said. “He loved to write and was constantly doodling.”

Mr. Witte was moved by the plight of a local family to start the Hepatitis B Foundation and was a major donor to the foundation’s research effort and lecture series. Tim Block, the president of the foundation, said its creation and growth over the years are “a lasting tribute to Paul, a truly remarkable person.”

Joel Rosen, chairman of the foundation’s board of directors, said Mr. Witte was “a uniquely talented individual, an extraordinarily generous person, warm, caring, and a friend.”

State Sen. Steve Santarsiero (D., Bucks) called Mr. Witte and his wife “dedicated innovators and philanthropists” in a Facebook tribute to Mr. Witte.

“He had empathy for those who were suffering,” his wife said. “He ‘adopted’ a lot of people. He loved mentoring and talking to high school and college kids.”

In addition to his work with the Hepatitis B Foundation, Mr. Witte helped fund, among others, a young author in need of publication and aspiring Democratic Party candidates.

Mr. Witte was born May 10, 1926, in Chuquicamata, Chile, where his German-born father worked as an engineer. The family moved to Scranton when Mr. Witte was a young boy and then to Philadelphia when he was 16.

An artist even as a youngster, he graduated from West Philadelphia High School, then took a couple of engineering classes at Drexel University but dropped out to spend just over a year in the Army Air Corps near the end of World War II.

When he returned, his mother suggested he combine his love of art and skill at engineering to study industrial design. So Mr. Witte went to the Philadelphia Museum School of Art, now the University of the Arts, and graduated in 1951.

Mr. Witte first worked as a product designer in Philadelphia and New York. He started his own design company in Princeton in the 1960s, and moved to Hopewell, N.J., and founded Originetics in 1969.

He moved to New Hope in 1979 and from 1983-2000 worked with Biomedical Engineering Trust in designing a variety of orthopedic implants.

Mr. Witte was married to Mary Alice Bonner for 25 years, and they had three children, Diane, Bruce, and Steven. That marriage ended in divorce in 1974.

He met his second wife, Jan Sakowski, on a business trip in Corning, N.Y., and they married in 1980 after a long-distance courtship. He lived in Hopewell at the time, so they wrote letters and poems to each other until she joined him in 1978.

Ever the artist, he sent her pages of doodles and drawings that he dashed off with her on his mind. Their friendship never faltered. She saved his doodles, and he never forgot their anniversary. They lived and worked together for 42 years.

“There was an evolution of our being together,” Jan Witte said. “He was a romantic like his father and so kind.”

In addition to his wife, former wife, and two of his three children, Mr. Witte is survived by other relatives. His son Bruce and a brother died earlier.

No service is planned.

Donations in his name may be made to the Hepatitis B Foundation, 3805 Old Easton Rd., Doylestown, Pa. 18902.