memorial

That was a beautifully organized but obviously very sad memorial. You have to understand, we all loved this guy. It was his first academic job (following a private sector finance career). Steve didn’t join us until 2008, but he made such an immediate impression that he was already Associate Dean by his second year and had even more weight on campus than that title alone would suggest. He was simply a smart, insightful, valuable colleague to have.

He was also wonderful on the human level: one of those people more interested in listening to stories than in telling them, and with a talent for always making you feel more capable and happier after you ran into him than before.

His wife and middle daughter both made beautiful speeches at the memorial. His daughter is probably 12 or 13, and it was a really disarming kid’s speech about how her dad took her to SeaWorld early this summer, and it was a lot of stories about how much fun they had at SeaWorld.

Also a great speech from his Dean, who had become a very close personal friend during their two years of working as a team. As for the other top-ranking speakers on the program, I’ve never seen them so emotional before. This regrettable incident was like a punch in the jaw to the entire institution, and none of us are even close to having processed it yet. It was never discussed much until today, and I think the reason for that is simply that none of us really believed it until today.