Walt Potter

Many knew Walt Potter as a professor, a mathematician and as an academic. 

And while he was proud to hold those positions, he truly loved connecting with others in ways that went beyond his professional capacity. He cherished being a father, a grandpa, a husband, a teacher and a friend.

Walter Milton Potter passed away Friday, February 17, 2023, surrounded by family, in his home in Georgetown. He was 76.

Born in San Diego, California, on December 20, 1946, and then raised in the small town of Puyallup, just outside of Seattle, Washington, Potter was the first in his family to attend college and eventually earned his Ph.D. in mathematics and computer science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  After teaching in Nigeria in central Africa for three years, he returned to UW-Madison where he was a professor for a decade and also ran the math department’s tutorial program. During those early years as a young educator, he became a father with the birth of his daughter Tricia and then had his first son Steven. 

In 1985, he married his wife Julie, and not long after, they had two sons — Bob and Danny. While the boys were still very young, Potter took a position as a professor of mathematics and computer science at Southwestern University in 1988. He sought out this position specifically because Southwestern had smaller class sizes, which meant he could spend more time with his students, helping them individually build their own educational dreams and careers. 

As a professor and researcher, Potter focused on finite group theory, which is the study of mathematical symmetry. He was the first professor at Southwestern to hold the Grogan Lord Chair in Computer Science. His research appeared in academic journals and aided in further mathematical explorations and educational materials over the years. One of his proudest moments was when famed computer science pioneer and colleague Edsger Dijkstra recognized his work and published “Potter’s Proof of Disjunction’s Symmetry” in 1991. 

Potter made a lasting impression on many of his students over the years. In fact, one of his students and a Southwestern alumnus, Joseph King, created the Walter Milton Potter Prize scholarship award in his honor at the university.

After his retirement in 2014, Potter continued to devour science fiction and cosmology books and dove vigorously into a number of hobbies he’d pursued over the years, including gardening, hypnotism, recumbent cycling, baking bread and, unironically, pottery.

Walt Potter is survived by his family, including wife, Julie, daughter, Tricia and her husband Joel and their three children, Dylan, Zachary and Norah, his son, Steven and his partner, Sonia and their son, Isaac, his son, Bob, and his fiancé, Laura, and his son, Danny and his wife, Christa and their son, Tommy. He is further survived by his sister, Meri Phelps, brothers, Tim and Jeff Potter and a dozen nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his brother, Tom and his parents.

Potter will be remembered by countless students, neighbors, scientists and educators — all of whom he would call his friends.

A memorial service for Walt Potter will be held at 3 p.m. on March 3, 2023, at The Lois Perkins Chapel on the Southwestern University campus.

In lieu of flowers, the Potter family would instead appreciate donations be made to The Contemporary Austin – Laguna Gloria Art Education Fund.