Our friend and co-worker, Walter Darling, recently lost his battle with cancer on December 21st. Walter had only been with Reata for a short time but his personality and work ethic had a very strong effect on everyone that he came in contact with. He was a perfectionist and he worked tirelessly to make sure that parts were setup and fixtured to run at their optimum rates. From the time he started with Reata, he was constantly asking for more challenges and he had an insatiable desire to learn. Reata bought a new Mazak, twelve pallet horizontal and Walter was the first one to step forward and begin learning this new, complex machine. It was always fun to give Walter a challenge and then leave him on his own to figure out how to beat the goal that was set for him.
It was sad to see the toll that cancer took on such a vibrant and energetic person. From his initial diagnosis to the end was such an amazingly quick process that it left everyone at Reata in disbelief. During this time, we had the pleasure of meeting and really getting to know Walter’s beautiful wife, Shari. It is unfortunate that we met her under these circumstances but we are all thankful to call her a friend.
We will all miss Walter but his memory will live on with us at Reata
