A sad day

Yesterday morning the world lost a fantastic individual. I am honoured to have known him, be his colleague and above all, be his friend.

David was an amazing man. He was strong emotionally and physically, one of the very slender number of people whom, upon meeting, one naturally respects before words are even spoken. He had a genuine ability to fill a room, so much so that when he spoke, everyone listened. He didn't suffer fools gladly - he had a bullshit detector second-to-none - but was always absolutely and unconditionally fair. He could get angry, storm about and swear like a trooper (all of which often came with hilarious consequences), but it was all born of real passion to do what was absolutely the best thing, the right thing, in any given situation.

He was a great boss and mentor. He lead from the front and took the flak so his team didn't have to. This was particularly noticeable when he first left work to recieve treatment for his cancer: with absolutely no disrespect whatsoever to the people who came in to take over David's role, the ship he had been sailing lost its mooring and rocked violently out at sea for some time. If anyone were blind enough not to realise how good a manager David was when he was around, they certainly could when he was gone. That's not to say his team didn't cope, David had instilled in us the authority to master our own destiny and it was down to that leadership that even in his absence, everyone continued to pull together and write some of the best software I've been lucky enough to work with.

It was David who orchestrated my move from Development to Product Management. "I'm looking forward to getting your shit code off our servers", he quipped, but the lengths he went to ensure I was happy and well looked after at that time, was off the scale.

Whislt trying to keep clichés to a minimum, David was a great inspiration to us all. If I can live my life a tenth as good as he did his, I'll have achieved something. Even when he was very sick he continued to join in, was always positive, stayed smiling and had time for everyone. As my colleague Chris so perfectly said, "I do wish people would die in the right order".

The pain of losing David will hurt for a very long time. It is nothing however compared to the grief his loving wife will be going through, or his young boy and girl who will grow up without their dad. Our thoughts are with them.

Rest in Peace, mate.