Roger S. Duter, 67, a former deputy assistant secretary of the Navy and Vietnam-era Navy combat pilot, died Sept. 16 at his home in Flagstaff, Ariz., after an apparent heart attack.
The death was confirmed by his wife, Cheryl Duter.
Mr. Duter was on active duty in the Navy from 1966 to 1970 and flew more than 200 combat missions in attack bombers over North Vietnam and Laos.
In the late 1970s, he joined the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, where he conducted analysis of foreign arms sales. He worked at the agency with John Lehman. When Lehman was appointed secretary of the Navy in 1982, he named Mr. Duter his special assistant for tactical programs. Mr. Duter’s official title later became deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for tactical aviation.
He helped create a site in Fallon, Nev., where naval aviators advance their bombing skills.
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After leaving the Pentagon in 1987, Mr. Duter did consulting work for defense aerospace companies through his firm, Requirements Resources. He retired in the mid-1990s.
Share this articleShareRoger Stephen Duter was born in Riverdale and raised in Greenbelt. He was a 1962 graduate of Surrattsville High School in Clinton and attended what is now Saint Louis University’s Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology in Missouri.
In the early 1970s, he received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a master’s degree in business administration at the University of West Florida in Pensacola. He then was an analyst for the investment firm Ferris & Co. in Washington.
His military decorations included the Meritorious Service Medal and the Air Medal.
Mr. Duter moved to Arizona in 2008 from Stevensville, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. In Arizona, he had homes in Sun City and Flagstaff.
His first marriage, to Gisela Weaver, ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife of 15 years, Cheryl Horn Duter of Sun City and Flagstaff; a son from his first marriage, David Duter of Yorktown, Va.; a stepson, Kenneth Weaver of Elizabeth City, N.C.; two brothers, Richard Duter of Odenton and Lee Duter of Ashburnham, Mass.; and four grandchildren.
— Adam Bernstein
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