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David’s Livestream Service will begin at 2:30 p.m. CT on Saturday, May 23, 2026. Scroll down to the Webcast section and click on “Watch Now.”

MADISON - David Harold Gustafson, 85, of Madison, Wis., passed away on March 3, 2026, at home with his family by his side. He was preceded in death by his brother, Chuck, and is survived by his wife, Rea; children Lori (Mike), Shelley (Bill) and Dave (Jen); six grandchildren, Conor, Liam, Jess, Sydney, Natalie and Sophia; sister, Lynnie; and countless others whose lives he influenced - the pioneer, the role model, the man who always made them feel like the most important people in the room.

David was born on September 11, 1940, in Kane, Pa., to Olive and Harold Gustafson. He moved to Waterford, Mich., at a young age, where Watkins Lake became the backdrop for a childhood that would shape him - full of curiosity, daring, and a lifelong love of the water. After losing his father to cancer, David was raised by his mother, Olive, and his grandmother, McKalip, who he credited with teaching him how to be a good person. He was a big brother to Chuck and Lynnie, and the family pulled close around one another. David moved through adolescence with both mischief and grit, testing boundaries and then choosing, deliberately, to transcend them. It was an early sign of the pioneering spirit that would come to define his life.

In 1956 he met the love of his life, Rea, at Kroger's Grocery - where David worked the produce department but found every excuse to drift toward the checkout line where she worked. Their life together unfolded from there: boat rides on Watkins Lake, college and graduate school, marriage, and three children. In 1966, at just 26 years of age, David accepted a position at the UW-Madison College of Engineering - a young Ph.D. brimming with ideas and energy, standing at the threshold of the work he was born to do.

There is not enough space to document all the ways Dave’s work as a professor of Industrial Engineering impacted human experience. Whether designing computer-based predictive models for suicide prevention in the late 1960s, creating technology to improve the lives of patients and their families facing health crises, or developing process improvement systems to help behavioral health agencies deliver quality care, his guiding force was the same: keeping the human individual at the center of the work.

In a 2020 interview, when the Department of Industrial Engineering’s Chair was named in his honor, Dave said, “It’s just so darn important we keep in mind that there are people out there who are suffering, who we need to be helping. We just have to remember who we’re trying to help.”

That belief shaped not only what Dave studied, but what he built. He founded the Center for Health Enhancement Systems Studies (https://center.chess.wisc.edu/) and co-founded the Institute for Healthcare Improvement - work rooted in the idea that better systems should always amount to higher quality, more human, care. Dave was also a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American College of Medical Informatics, recognition that reflected the impact of a career guided by that same principle. His legacy is captured well in two pieces - one from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, “Using Technology with a Fundamental Focus on the Patient” (https://www.ahrq.gov/funding/grantee-profiles/grtprofile-gustafson.html) and another from the UW-Madison College of Engineering, “New endowed ISyE chair honors health systems engineering pioneer” (https://engineering.wisc.edu/news/new-endowed-isye-chair-honors-health-systems-engineering-pioneer/).

As a devoted husband and father, Dave was actively involved in his community and church. We cherish the church youth canoe trips to the Boundary Waters he co-led, the countless paddles-and-portages, Crazy Legs and Syttende Mai runs, always with one or more of his kids. He was our biggest supporter and problem-solver. A strong advocate for learning by doing, he and Rea led our family on adventures across the country and around the world. He loved his Men’s Group at Advent Lutheran Church, and he was a people person through and through.

David lived with a genetic heart condition for much of his life, a challenge met head-on with a heart transplant in 2008. His family lovingly coined this the “grandpa heart” as it allowed him to spend the next 18 years developing deep relationships with all six of his grandkids as they each came into their own, learning from their grandfather’s compassion, sense of humor and adventure, and unshakeable sense of responsibility. These qualities will live on within those he loved.

There will be a celebration of Dave’s life at ADVENT LUTHERAN CHURCH, 7118 Old Sauk Road, Madison, on Saturday, May 23, 2026. A visitation will begin at 1 p.m., followed by a commemoration at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Online condolences may be made at www.gundersonfh.com.

Gunderson West

Funeral & Cremation Care

7435 University Ave.

(608) 831-6761

David Gustafson

September 11, 1940 - March 03, 2026

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