Mark Dziersk, a well-known industrial designer who was a longtime supporter and leader of the Industrial Designers Society of America, died at the age of 60. IDSA announced his death on Feb. 5, and society leaders said they learned of his death in late January.
IDSA did not give a cause of death.
Born in Detroit, Dziersk earned a bachelor's degree in industrial design from the University of Michigan in 1981.
He had more than 50 U.S. product design and engineering patents. He was a partner of McKinsey & Co. and spent much of his career as managing director of the Lunar industrial design firm. McKinsey acquired Lunar in 2015.
Before that, Dziersk was senior vice president of industrial design at BrandImage-Laga/DesGrippes and executive vice president of design at Herbst LaZar Bell Inc., two of the nation's top design firms.
IDSA said Dziersk was widely known in the industry as a design thinking and management consultant. His expertise included innovation strategy, branding, industrial design, packaging and public speaking on the topics of design, sustainability and creativity, the society said.
"Throughout his professional career, Mark remained incredibly active in the design community," IDSA said in its announcement. For more than 20 years, he held many volunteer positions within the organization, including president and board chairman. He was named to the IDSA Academy of Fellows in 2001.
Dziersk was involved in multiple projects engaging the use of plastics in design, including panel discussions at NPE2015 and the Society of Plastics Engineers' Design In Plastics conference in 2017.
David Kusuma, vice president of global research and development at Tupperware Brands Corp. said Dziersk was respected across the design community.
"He was a great advocate for IDSA and for the design profession as a whole. Mark was not only a leader but a significant and respected role model for new and 'older' designers alike," Kusuma said in an IDSA tribute.
Robert T. Schwartz, vice president of global design and user experience at GE Healthcare, called him a "design warrior."
"He touched and inspired so many with his intelligence, imagination and endless charm," he said.
Dziersk earned numerous awards for design excellence, including a Gold IDEA for instrumentation and concept explorations, several Silver and Bronze IDEAs and Best of Category and Design Distinction awards from ID magazine's Annual Design Review. His writing was featured in Innovation, Fast Company, ID magazine, Time magazine, The Wall Street Journal and many other publications.
Dziersk taught as an adjunct professor at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence and the New England School of Art & Design in Boston. Most recently, he was an adjunct professor in the Master of Product Development Program at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
Dziersk is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, and three daughters.