Dan Olmsted UPI and Gannett veteran dies at 64

Daniel "Dan" J. Olmsted of Falls Church, Virginia., former Washington bureau chief for United Press International, died Jan. 23. He was 64 and had been a member of the National Press Club for 17 years.

The following obituary was posted by Fairfax Memorial Founder Home.

Dan Olmsted was born in Oak Park, Illinois, to Robert and Catharine (Hatfield) Olmsted. He moved to Danville, Illinois, and graduated from Danville High School in 1970. He was the news editor of the high school newspaper and worked part time at Gannett's Commercial-News.

He was an Eagle Scout.

He was inducted into the Wall of Fame at Danville High in 2002.

He attended Yale University on a scholarship and graduated in 1974 with degree in English. After college he returned to Danville and worked as a reporter for the Commercial-News, where he won the Illinois Associated Press award for public service reporting. In 1978, Dan moved to Rochester, New York, to work for the Democrat-Chronicle.

In 1982, Dan moved to the D.C. area to become a founding editor at USA Today. He then became a founding editor of USA Weekend, a Sunday supplement. While with USA Weekend, Dan interviewed Steven Spielberg for three cover stories and, in one, persuaded Steven to put on his old Boy Scout uniform (but not the hat!). As senior editor at USA Weekend, he commissioned an investigation of the murder of a Vietnamese immigrant in Florida that won first place in the Asian-American Journalists Association.

Dan left Gannett in 1999 and became the Washington Bureau Chief for United Press International (UPI) where he worked on the 2000 election and 9/11 stories. While at UPI, he wrote a series of investigative articles called "Larium and the Military" about severe side-effects associated with the anti-malarial drug. For his efforts, Dan was awarded the 2005 Mental Health Media Award for Web/Internet reporting from the National Mental Health Association. Dan's articles also served as the basis for a "Law & Order: SVU" episode on the subject.

While at UPI, Dan began a series entitled "Age of Autism." He left UPI in 2007 and co-founded a daily web newspaper by that name about the autism epidemic. He co-authored the book (with Mark Blaxill) The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine and a Man-Made Epidemic which was published in 2010. The pair authored a second book entitled Vaccinations 2.0, which was published in 2013. A third book by the pair is due to be published in July 2017 and is tentatively entitled Epidemic Denial: How Denying the Autism Epidemic Hurts Our Children.

Dan is survived by his partner of more than years, Mark Milett, his sister, Rosamond (Rosie) Augsperger, nephews John and James Vana, as well as several great-nephews and nieces and cousins.