Gene Davis

Claude Eugene Davis, Jr

December 31, 1947 – March 6, 2025

Claude (Gene) Davis, born on December 31, 1947, in Orlando, Florida. He was the only son of Claude E. Davis, a founder and President of Barnett Bank and Winifred Odom Davis, a homemaker,  of Cocoa, Florida.

During his teenage years Gene enjoyed water skiing with his friends on the Indian River in Florida.  Additional teenage hobbies were drag racing and flying with his friends Joe Rudolph and Ralph Howard.

Gene graduated from Cocoa High School in 1965. After high school, he pursued his passion for golf and played in various golf tournaments eventually becoming a golf pro.  Later, he began his career in banking, following in his father’s footsteps, and worked for various banks in the South.  An early pilot, he received his pilot’s license at 15, he flew bank check clearings from banks in Florida to the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta.  Later he founded Mobile America, a finance company for the newly emerging mobile home industry.

On May 13th 1967 Gene was married to his first wife Linda Ricks. In attendance were their best friends Joe and Susie Rudolph.  Gene and Linda parted ways in 1969 and reconnected many decades later. 

A tinkerer at a young age, he was an early adopter of computers and taught himself how to build and program computers and worked for a time for Tandy Corporation. He combined his banking knowledge with his computer knowledge and became VP/Sales for FSA, Inc. a  Florida software company servicing the banking industry. He met his wife Diane when he sold a check processing system to a Southern California bank where she was a VP. They eventually settled in Palm Springs, CA where he started his own computer servicing company, Computer Support Group, Inc. They had three sons, Claude E (Gene) Davis, III, Christian Davis and Cameron (Evan) Davis. He was a devoted father who coached his boys in baseball and soccer. He also became a Boy Scouts of America Scoutmaster to all three boys.

Gene had been an active member of Desert Chapel and Desert Chapel Christian School in Palm Springs, CA and donated and installed their very first computer system.

A true Southerner at heart, Gene moved in 2011 to Fort Mojave, AZ then on to Rutledge, Georgia with his first wife Linda Ricks Poff.  Gene was an avid ham radio enthusiast and his call sign was K4WAT. 

Gene is survived by his former wife Diane; his children, Gene, Christian and Evan Davis; his 10 month old grandson, Rockwell Davis and his long-time companion, Linda Poff and various cousins in California, Alabama and Georgia. He was preceded in death by his parents, Claude and Winnie Davis.

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