VCU news

By Megan Nash

From corporate heights to casino nights, Stephen Custer has enjoyed a career that has been anything but ordinary.

Now 82, Custer, Ph.D., has served for nearly two decades as an assistant professor and director of the Master of Decision Analytics Weekend Program, which has become a cornerstone offering at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Business. His journey to VCU had many unexpected turns – “including being a chicken plucker at one time,” he noted – and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I can honestly say I’ve never had a job I didn’t enjoy,” Custer said, sitting in Snead Hall. “And my objective has always been to do what I enjoy, not chase money.”

With a chuckle, he added: “I don’t know what I’ll do next, but whatever it is, I’m sure I’ll enjoy it” – much as he enjoyed sharing these vignettes from his journey.

Roots in Rockingham

In the rural expanses of Rockingham County in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, Custer grew up in an environment steeped in hard work and family values. “I tell people the day they gave out parents, I showed up with a bucket instead of a cup,” he said.

His father, a World War II veteran and entrepreneur, built what became part of a billion-dollar poultry business from scratch. His mother, who spent her life contributing to business, civic and social circles in Rockingham, ran the business alongside him.

As a teenager, Custer worked in almost every part of the poultry plant.

“I grew up in a business,” he said. “Our kitchen was the office, and the phone calls for the business came at all hours.” From those humble beginnings, his family’s enterprise grew exponentially.

The early grind

A first-generation high school graduate on his father’s side, Custer charted an educational path from a small school with 200 students to Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, where he thrived as an undergraduate and served as president of his fraternity. Marrying young, he and his wife moved to South Carolina, where Custer earned his master’s degree in mathematics at the University of South Carolina before attending Virginia Tech for his Ph.D. in statistics.

This path was not without its tests, as he balanced academic pursuits with family responsibilities. “It was a challenge, but my wife was great,” Custer said. “She worked so I studied.”

Brushes with corporate

His first job was with IBM in Poughkeepsie, New York, where he started in the semiconductor division and advanced to the reliability area division, bridging the gap between engineers and statisticians. This role was a natural fit for Custer, whose ability to translate complex theoretical concepts into practical solutions set him apart.

“I was the translator between the theoretical work and the practical application,” he said. “It was a great job, and I loved it.”

From IBM, Custer moved to Xerox in Rochester, New York, where he managed the internal consulting department. This role let him engage in the type of consulting work he always aspired to, albeit within the secure confines of a corporate environment.

When Xerox downsized, Custer started teaching at Canisius College’s business school in Buffalo while also consulting within and outside the school. As an offshoot of his consulting projects, he built a newsletter business just as laser printers were taking off, creating a turnkey operation.

Going all in

An unexpected chapter in Custer’s life began when he turned to professional gambling. A downturn in his consulting business led him to find solace and challenge in blackjack, and armed with books about the game and a self-made computer program, he taught himself to count cards.

“I wasn’t too worried about making big money,” he said. “I had two objectives: One was to prove I could beat the bastards – and two, not go broke trying. I met both objectives.”

“For about a year, I played blackjack on my kitchen table,” he recalled. “Then I started going to a local casino and did rather well.”

What followed was extensive travel to casinos across the country, where Custer sharpened his skills and observed human nature in its rawest form. “You tend to experience people as they are, not as they want you to see them. In a casino, masks come down,” he said.

His experiences culminated in a book, “21 A Journey: Memoirs of a Professional Gambler,” that detailed not just the mechanics of the game but the human stories behind it.

Return to academia

For five years, Custer played blackjack in Las Vegas before taking a job with a consulting firm. Then came a serendipitous call from an old friend at VCU. Despite enjoying his consulting work, Custer found the thought of joining the School of Business and, in turn, developing its Master of Decision Analytics program too enticing to pass up.

“I didn’t have any faculty, staff, students or budget,” he said with a laugh. “But the business community was enthusiastic, and we built the program from the ground up with their input.”

The MDA program, now a pillar of the school’s graduate studies, was crafted with direct guidance from Richmond business leaders. Custer credits much of the program’s success to the collaboration with industry experts and the pivotal role played by Rachel Kaeser, the new director for the MDA Weekend Program.

“Rachel has been an equal partner in developing everything about the program. She kept me out of trouble and has played and still is playing an important role in every detail,” Custer said. “The program wouldn’t be what it is today without Rachel’s input and work over the years.”

He noted that his approach to developing the curriculum was unconventional at the time: “Our program was not put together by academics but by the people who would send the students and hire them. It was their needs that shaped it.”

As for the success of the MDA program, Custer noted two early signs that they were on the right track.

“We had our first advisory board meeting with no program, no budget, no students,” he said. “But the business community’s enthusiasm – and the eventual enrollment of 30 students, almost double our target – proved we had something special.”