OBITUARY:William Wallace ‘Bill’ McDonald dead at 80

William Wallace “Bill” McDonald of Laguna Beach died at Hoag Hospital Nov. 16 after a fall that resulted in a cerebral hemorrhage. He was 80.

McDonald began his professional career in the petroleum industry as a vice president of marketing with Signal Oil & Gas in Signal Hill. He then became a vice president of Edgington Oil Refinery in Paramount.

In 1974, he founded Amorient Petroleum Inc., an international petroleum brokerage that included tanker ships, a fuel terminal, trucking and several large-volume gas stations.

One of his side ventures included what may have been the world’s largest freshwater aqua-farm and hatchery in Hawaii and Ecuador.

With his brother, Jim, McDonald developed and built the Vista Valley Country Club in Vista in the early 1980s.

McDonald was a longtime board member of the North Laguna Community Assn. After the 1993 Laguna fires, he chaired a group called the Laguna Coalition to change the makeup of the Laguna Beach City Council toward one that was more focused on fiscal responsibility.

Active in the American Paralysis Assn., McDonald also set in motion various nonprofit organizations, beginning with a family-run group called Los Pobres Ninos, and a local group called Helping Hands Family. He was also a founding member of El Niguel Country Club in Laguna Niguel.

In 1999, McDonald was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

He is survived by his wife, Ann W. McDonald of Laguna Beach; six children, Kathleen, Michael, Janette Taylor, Eileen, Laurie McMahon and Susan Tobia; JoAn L. McDonald, the mother of his children; five grandchildren, Krista Taylor, Thomas and Megan McMahon, and Nicole and Connor Tobia; his brother, Patrick McDonald of Vista; sisters Janis McDonald of Mesa, Ariz.; and Lois Ann Fipps of Burnet, Texas.

The family requests that in lieu of flowers donations be made in his name to Amyloidosis Support Group, 232 Orchard Drive, Wood Dale, IL 60191 or PanCAN, 2141 Rosecrans Ave., Suite 7000, El Segundo, CA 90245 in memory of his brothers-in-law Don and Peter Welch.