BANNOCKBURN, IL -- Dieter Bergman, the venerable technical standards guru and the heart and soul of the IPC Designers Council, has passed away.

He was 82.

Bergman spent his entire career -- spanning some 56 years -- in the printed circuit industry. He got his start in 1956 as designer for Philco Ford in Philadelphia. A decade later, about the time he began designing boards using computers, he began attending IPC meetings as a representative of his company.

In 1974, then Institute of Interconnecting and Packaging Electronic Circuits executive director Ray Pritchard hired Bergman as the trade group's first technical director. While Bergman wasn't certain about taking the job, as he related to others, he never left. Under Bergman, IPC became a worldwide force in technical standards. He coauthored several standards ranging from circuit board design to land patterns to dimensioning,  cofounded the IPC Designers Council, and pushed IPC to take a leading role in worldwide standards development. He was a relentless instructor, producing hundreds of workshops on design and fabrication around the world.

For his efforts he received the IPC President's Award in 1968 and was inducted to its IPC Hall of Fame in 1985. 

In 2012, PCD&F named its PCB Design Hall of Fame after Bergman.

Bergman had been ill for a few weeks prior to his passing. He is survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter.