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Walt Custer: Making Data Interesting
September 3, 2025 | Andy Shaughnessy, I-Connect007Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
I just learned that IPC Hall of Famer Walt Custer has passed away at 81. I first met Walt about 20 years ago when I started covering the fabrication industry. Right away, he started telling me which companies to watch and which trends to follow. This was in the years following 9/11, and things were still pretty fluid.
I still remember the first time I saw him do a presentation at a TMRC conference years ago—was it Scottsdale, Arizona? I thought it was going to be a snooze-fest, but I needed the content. Maybe I could get some other work done while I was taking notes.
I got zero other work done. Walt walked us through his data like an attorney laying out the case for his client. And he zealously represented his client—data!
He opened by acknowledging that, yes, this was going to be somewhat dry, but to bear with him. The content itself was borderline boring, but Walt’s delivery was anything but; he was almost bursting with data that he needed to get out of his system. He could have talked for days about “rest of world” semiconductor volumes.
Walt would post these seemingly disparate slides about, say, global PCB material prices, and just when the audience was wondering where this was all going, he would display a slide that tied everything together, and Walt would smile like a new dad.
But for a lot of audience members, the best part of a Custer presentation was the selection of cartoons that peppered his slide shows. Walt was the first presenter I ever saw use cartoons throughout a presentation, not just at the beginning or end. You never knew what cartoons would make it into his slide deck; it might be something from The Far Side or The New Yorker, or some cartoon you’d never heard of. After a dozen or so graphs and charts, you knew a cartoon was on the way.
Walt got the joke: As important as this data was to him, he understood that it was hard for the audience to pay attention for an hour after lunch.
Walt taught us to pay attention to the data, even from “rest of world.” His son Jonathan is now leading Custer Consulting Group, the company Walt founded 26 years ago. We all wish Walt’s family the best.
Click here to read Jonathan Custer's letter to the industry regarding Walt's passing.
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