Dave Varty: A life of adventure, learning and transformation

With great sadness, we inform you that Dave Varty sadly passed away suddenly on December 13.

Born 30 May 1964 in Kent, he grew up in Harpenden in Hertfordshire and attended St Albans School in South of England, around 20 miles north of London. Dave remained close with his parents Jackie and Ian and sister Sonja, who are devastated at the loss of such a supportive and much-loved member of the family. Dave was also very close to Sophie his Niece and Callum his Nephew. He had also just become a Great Uncle as Tiggy was born 7 months ago.

At University, Dave studied Sports Science and his interest in sport, adventure and lifelong learning continued into recent times. Along with a BA in Sport Science from Northumbria University, he achieved an MSC in Training & Development in 1994 from the University of Leicester, plus while working, an MBA in Business Administration. His hunger for learning continued unabated, as he had more recently enrolled into a M-Phil (Masters in Philosophy) with the Open University.

A word defining Dave was ‘curiosity’, whether intellectual, professional or physical. Indeed, Rudyard Kipling’s words ‘satiable curtiosity’ described Dave perfectly! 

Dave was certainly a thinker, an avid reader and lived life to the full. He had a love for sport, whether this was swimming and running for his county while growing up, watching his beloved Saints (Northampton Rugby Club), volunteering as an assessor for the Duke of Edinburgh Award, or mountaineering (he volunteered and fundraised for the Charity Climb your Mountain), deep-sea scuba diving (and/or instructing) in challenging seas or travelling to the far-flung places of the Earth. He simply loved nothing better than spending time outdoors and camping under the stars.

In fact, his childhood friends called him DD ‘Dangerous Dave’ as he so enthusiastically embraced adventure, and in his twenties, his nickname became ‘wolf’ due to his impressively long mane of hair!

His family, friends and colleagues admired his energy for growth and adventure and his willingness to continually learn new things.

Dave certainly applied this natural energy and enthusiasm to good effect in his career in the print technology industry. Indeed, his career spanned a time when technology in printing changed dramatically.

His first step into the print industry came when he joined DuPont after graduation. He worked in the film department, which at that time included pre-press and X-ray. In the print industry, national newspapers were moving production out of Fleet Street to Wapping in East London, which saw a significant change in the Newspaper Industry. High-end drum scanners were revolutionising colour separation and new daylight films were rapidly moving planning away from the darkroom. At this point, Dave was given the responsibility for a sales area in the North of England which was a good education for him in all forms of print: Litho, Screen, labelling, gravure and especially flexo packaging which was very strong in the Hull area. During this time, he learned a lot, especially from his customers.

Before the dust had really settled on this time, the advent of the Apple Mac then changed everything when it came along around 1990, particularly challenging the need for specialist ‘repro’ houses. Typesetting was moving from the’ dark art’ of coding to WYSIWYG and then came postscript and the computer to plate (CTP) revolution. Within a cycle of 10 years, something new always seemed to change the print sector!

Dave then entered the world of inkjet with Dupont and Agfa as he saw the growth of inkjet in certain markets, especially screen print, and realised that their competence and manufacturing technologies could be adapted to the demand for high-end coatings rather than just the chalk receptive substrates to that date. Hand in hand with the growth of CTP was a demand for high-quality proofing, now in the hands of the printers and Agfa quickly rose to take the mantle as number one in this market. With this experience over time, he developed an understanding of what is required for an analogue industry to integrate digital. Dave enjoyed working in this sales role, building businesses while working at Mortsel close to Antwerp. At this point, he became a Product Manager for Film, Proofing and Wide Format at Agfa eventually becoming global sales manager for wide format. This was a major seed for the development of collaboration.

In 2006, Agfa had a strategic change; and he then went to the EFI Fiery EMEA business at the time that most major traditionally perceived ‘copier’ Companies were developing new systems to challenge Commercial Print. After a time seeing the world from the ‘bottom-up’ in the industry he gained further experience with developing new markets for industrial printing at Xennia before a superb opportunity came up to join the growing industrial print business at Ricoh around 8 years ago where he remained until his passing.

Dave was hugely liked and respected by his customers and his colleagues. He was passionate about inkjet and its transformative power. Over the years he developed an enviable understanding of both the technical potential of the technology but even more importantly was able to direct the commercial potential and help customers unlock this value.

The main point is that he learned a lot during this time and gained the knowledge of the dynamics of the shift from analogue to digital across industries and he had the ability to educate customers and companies on their digital transition journey.  This enthusiasm to learn and his ability to educate will be sorely missed by the inkjet industry, by his friends and colleagues at Ricoh, and by all of us at FuturePrint.

Dave is survived by his parents Jackie and Ian, his sister Sonja, niece Sophie, Nephew Callum and Great Niece, Tiggy.

The Funeral takes place on January 10th at 14:00 GMT.

Banbury Crematorium
Hardwick Hill
Southam Road
Banbury
Oxfordshire
OX16 1ST

Webcast for those not able to attend in person: https://watch.obitus.com

Username: lequ5428

Password: 442046

Because David had so many friends scattered far and wide the family have requested that those wishing to attend the service make contact with them in order to help with planning catering etc. 

If you don’t have any contact details for the family please email brackley@eddfrostanddaughters.co.uk and the funeral directors will pass this information on to the family.

It is to be family flowers only, however, donations in David’s memory for Mountain Rescue England & Wales may be made in the offertory box available at the service, via this website www.eddfrostanddaughters.co.uk or by sending c/o: Edd Frost & Daughters Family Funeral Directors, 27 Market Place, Brackley, NN13 7AB.

Can we ask that you please share this notice in the usual manner to ensure that as many of David’s friends are made aware of the arrangements for his funeral service.