David Wenner grew up in Cocoa, Florida, ten miles from Cape Canaveral, which later became the home of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. He spent many evenings watching the fireworks display caused by missile test failures and was inspired by the science (and science fiction) surrounding space travel. Throughout high school Dave believed he was going to become a physicist, but senior year a family friend encouraged him to consider a liberal arts education, leading to his enrollment at Yale University.

Following graduation from Yale with a degree in electrical engineering, Wenner received a master’s degree in computer science from Purdue University and joined the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Thirty years and millions of frequent flier miles later, Wenner retired as a Senior Partner after having worked in a number of offices, including New York, Copenhagen, Atlanta, and Miami (which he founded).

Retirement offered Wenner the opportunity to return to his first love—the sciences. While serving on the boards of two science-related nonprofit organizations, he deepened his engagement through private study with a postdoctoral physicist and began building what would become The Wenner Collections. His approach to collecting is unlike any other: rather than focusing on isolated rarities, Wenner set out to assemble and restore the foundational works that, together, tell the complete and interconnected story of scientific progress.