Lars Lyberg

Lars (or Lasse, his Swedish nickname) first came into my life in 1993. We met at Statistics Sweden where we both worked. The Deputy Director General at that time, Gösta Guteland, had asked Lars to help me write a tender. I never thought that writing a tender would be fun, but I discovered early on that working with Lars was great fun and very stimulating. I learned so much from him and he was the one that encouraged me to get my PhD in Statistics. Lars had a successful career. He first started out working for Professor Tore Dalenius at Stockholm University. Tore introduced Lars to many of the important people in our field and he inspired Lars to work in the international arena. In 1966 Lars moved on to work for Statistics Sweden. Over the years Lars contributed to our field in many ways, he founded the Journal of Official Statistics (JOS), co-authored twelve books and numerous journal articles in the field of Survey Research and Survey Quality, initiated numerous international workshops and conferences, and headed many committees. Lars was Head of the Research and Development Department at Statistics Sweden and a great source of inspiration for many of us working in the field of survey research. He was also Professor at Stockholm University where he encouraged many of his students to start working in Official Statistics. The last couple of years he worked for Demoskop. Lars was a true researcher; he was full of ideas and he always wanted to learn more. He received a number of awards such as the AAPOR (American Association for Public Opinion Research) Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement in 2018. Lars and I shared many values and interests. To work hard and to always do your best are values that Lars lived by and values that I treasure. His kindness and generosity made him very special. Traveling, hiking, playing tennis and spending time with family and friends is something that we both enjoy. We also like reading books and newspapers. Although, Lars liked newspapers a bit more than I do, he would not throw a paper away unless he had read the whole paper. It happened more than once that Lars would tell me about some “news” that he read about and I would think “That’s strange, didn’t something similar happen a year ago?” before realizing that he had read an old newspaper. Lars is dearly missed by family and friends. Lars has two adoptive sons, Luis and Carlos, and eight grandchildren. In 2014 we decided to adopt a new family member, Gaia the cat. Lars loved Gaia and Gaia loved Lars. You see them both in Lars’ favorite photo above. Despite his busy schedule, Lars has always been there for everyone in the family to help out if needed. Lars’ great personality and sense of humor made him a very popular family member and friend. A gathering was simply not as fun when Lars was not there. He was a child at heart. From an early age my nephews, Sebastian and Alexander, loved to come and stay with us in Stockholm. We would go sightseeing, visit museums and just hang out. Lars and Alexander would tell jokes, yodel, sing silly songs and goof around. We would all laugh until we cried. There are no words that can describe how much I miss Lars. Lilli Japec Please share your memories of Lars in Swedish or English on this page. There was a virtual funeral service on Friday March 26 at 14.00. To watch the service go to “Links” (or “Länkar” in Swedish) in the menu below and click on “Funeral service, Lars Lyberg, March 26 at 14.00”