WHEATON, IL—On December 29, 2025, Wallace D. Nard, Jr., passed away at age 90. FTA members “Wally” Nard as an association Hall of Fame member and “flexo warrior” with an impressive career and a legacy of service. 

Nard started his career in flexo in 1957 working for Porter and Dugas in Chicago; he became general manager of that company in 1964. In the 1970s, he joined Reilly Lake Shore Graphics as a vice president. He joined Anderson & Vreeland in 1973, eventually becoming marketing manager. In 1989, Nard formed Novaflex Inc., based in suburban Chicago, a printing and laminating sales/service group. In 2010, he began KYMC America, representing a flexographic printing press manufacturer in Taiwan. 

Nard’s volunteer service to flexography was both administrative and technical. He served as the FTA national workshop chairman in 1978 and 1979. He was elected to the FTA Board of Directors in 1979 and again in 1982; he also served as chairman of the board. He served as secretary, treasurer and chairman of the planning committee and as a member of the compensation committee.  

He was chairman of the FTA Annual Forum in 1983 and spoke at numerous gravure and flexo association meetings. He was an editor for Flexography: Principles & Practices, as well as holding several patents related to graphics industry. Nard was inducted into the FTA Hall of Fame in 1988 for his lifetime contribution the industry.  

From the beginning, Nard treasured his association with the FTA. In remarks recorded in the FTA 50th Anniversary Journal, he recalled, “As a young man, I wanted to learn from my peers and FTA was the best way to do it.”  

Of the many programs in which he took part, he recalled with greatest satisfaction FTA’s regional workshops. These events, “like the one I chaired in Chicago on Nov. 13, 1965, stand out in my mind,” he noted, “as FTA’s most ambitious and effective programs,” providing “high-caliber educational training in an informal setting.”  

Fellow flexo veteran Bruce Riddell, retired vice president of engineering at Spectrum Label Corporation, lauded his late colleague as “an actual champion in leading the FTA and its members toward who we are today … standing by the side of many flexographic warriors.” 

His work helped establish the collaborative, knowledge-sharing culture that continues to define the association. 

“Each and every day, the opportunity to learn about each different market segment made me choose to come back to printing from an assignment in aircraft,” he once said, reflecting on the value that FTA brought to his career. “I love to be here. I’m glad I came back to printing and FTA.” 

Nard’s legacy lives on in the many printers, suppliers, educators and technologists he influenced, and in the programs and standards he helped build. His contributions strengthened the foundation on which today’s flexographic advancements continue to stand. 

More information on Nard, those he leaves behind and how his family would like him to be remembered is available online: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/wallace-nard-obituary?id=60466656.