The Legacy of Gary Sullivan Memorial Service at Menlo Park, California September 8, 2010
	™ "Just because it works, doesn't mean its OK"

Good afternoon and thank you for coming. My name is George Lee and like you, I'm here to celebrate the memory of Gary Sullivan. First of all let me say that I am not very good at memorial services, so please bear with me.

It is probably appropriate that the burden of saying something here should fall to me since I have known Gary since from before we hired him and stayed in touch with him right up to the time he fell victim of a sudden heart attack.

It goes without saying that when someone dies, the family and loved ones are suffering from their loss and the sudden void it leaves. The tremendous loss and grief they feel is overwhelming. When that loved one passes away suddenly; or tragically; or when it happens to someone young; or someone who is just beginning to enjoy life, it seems to be somehow even sadder. This certainly was the case with Gary.

There are others, however, beyond the immediate family and loved ones that feel a sense of loss when someone passes away. We often forget how much time we spend at work and with our colleagues and co-workers. When I stop to think about it, I personally know that I have spent more time with many of you than I have with my own family. And so, the work family also suffers from the loss when someone passes away. For our family here, the Survey Family, and in particular, those of us in the Western Mapping Center are a very close knit group and we share the sadness of Gary's sudden death.

And then, there are the personal friends that one accumulates over a life time. These are the people from one's childhood, schools they have attended, club and organization memberships, and business relationships beyond work.

Often times, these are three very distinct groups and they never met. Sadly, they often come together for the first time at a memorial service. Sometimes even the employees here, who have worked together for years, don't know very much about a person's personal life. Sad but true. That was not my experience with Gary. Gary talked about his family, his work colleagues, and his personal friends all the time and used their names. He would use their names and would say to me, "you have to meet them." After years of hearing Gary talk about his family and friends, I feel that I know many of them but I have never met them.

My first contact with Gary was while he was a Field Service Manager with Matra Technology, a French company that produced the analytical stereoplotter that we just purchased and Ray Garrett was working to get it into production. It was Lyman Ladner recommended that we hire Gary and I recall meeting with them to offer Gary the job. In the course of the conversation, Gary mentioned that he was making a lot more in private industry. In my normal direct way, I said something like, that's the offer, take it or leave it. Gary took the job but he never held that against me. As it turned out, Gary contributed a lot more to this organization than just being able to service the Matra for us. Lyman Ladner has often said that he only made two good decisions in his entire career and one of them was to hire Gary Sullivan.

I didn't know much about Gary other than he was the Matra service guy and I was going along with Lyman's recommendation. I learned later that Gary graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Technology Education in 1982 from the State University of New York and that goes a long way in explaining some of things I observed about Gary. Specifically, he studied electronics and started out as an Electronics teacher. Electronics was something I liked myself and being an Industrial Arts teacher was something I dreamed of doing when I was young.

My first impression of Industrial Arts teachers or shop teachers was that they knew a lot about a wide variety of subjects. They could read drawings and schematics and knew how to build things. They knew how things worked, and could trouble shoot the problem when things failed. They were hands-on people and could fix things. Gary had all those skills and it was amazing to me that Gary had such a broad range of knowledge of so many fields. Gary's background in electronics, computers, telecommunications, and related IT technology in general is why he was so valuable. Gary's general love of technology was why Gary was so much more to this organization than just the guy who serviced the Matra.

When I moved on to other jobs, I especially enjoyed taking my breaks and hanging around the shop and the computer group. While visiting the gang, I noticed that it was in Gary's nature to explain things and teach his colleagues and fellow employees. Sometimes, he would purposely force his co-workers to dig into new technologies and learn something on their own. I recall that Gary would prepare notes or cheat sheets for his introductory training sessions for something new that we were doing. These things were beyond Gary's immediate duties and he seemed to bend over backwards in order to pass on his knowledge to others. I now realize that it was his teacher instinct that drove him to do these things. In fact, Gary worked hard to pass his computer knowledge to others. Gary couldn't write worth a damn and he knew it so he would often ask Amy or me to edit his notes before he gave his classes.

Gary also was very much aware of what the Western Mapping Center was all about. In particular, he understood what we were doing with the Digital Orthophoto Program and realized its potential. Gary did not isolate himself with only computers operations. He was completely engaged with the organization and quickly become an integral part of this family. For example, even though Gary didn't play golf, but he would take time off and came to the annual golf tournament picnic to help Don Furazawa with the cooking.

My first experience with Gary's other skills was in auto repair. He worked on his Fiero while I worked on my 1974 Nova. I had worked on my Nova for so long that I didn't need any help with it but then I bought a new car. That was that 1981 Corolla. Even though I had a service manual from the original owner, I still had to have Gary's help me locate the oil filter and the special sensors on that car. After crashing into the center divider on 880 and living through it, I managed to unbend the engine compartment and literally using wire and rope to hold things together. Everything worked except the fan would not turn. This happened during the winter and as long as I didn't drive any further than to work or to SFO and didn't get stuck in a traffic jam, I was fine and drove it that way. I mentioned this to Gary once and he said to take a pair of scissors and cut off the tips of the fan. That worked and I drove the wreck for another year. Even with my new car, this time a 2004, Gary helped diagnose the problem with a circuit board that controlled the brake lights. Many of today's maintenance personnel can isolate a problem to a particular board and they merely replace the whole board. Other less skilled do it by trial and error and just swap boards. Gary not only knew what the components on the board were but he knew how they made the board in the first place. He always amazed me with the breath of his knowledge of electronics. In the end, we bypassed the board and converted it to an analog circuit. Our last effort with cars was when he was last here and he had this gadget that he could reset the warning lights in modern cars.

Another thing I discovered about Gary during one of our breaks together was that he just passed his ham radio test and got his operator's license. That was another thing I was interested in as a kid but could not afford to do. I mentioned that I had always wanted to be a ham radio operator and Gary immediately offered his study books to me. I learned that Gary was a very generous person. He was willing to loan you anything he had. If he wasn't going to use it anymore, he would just give it to you. Gary's brother told me once that he literally saw Gary take the shirt off his back to give to a stranger. Gary and I continued this hobby for years and it was his goal to be prepared if a big earthquake happened around here and to be able to communicate to the outside world after all the cell towers went out and the power grid was disrupted. In fact, Gary and I had this great scheme to put a ham radio antenna on the roof of this building for emergencies before GSA took it over.

The next thing I got back into was photography. Of course, Gary was an old time photographer but he was well into digital technology. He would advise me on the best camera to buy and let me play with his digital camera. Of course, Gary also advised me on the best computer to have for digital photography. I have to admit that the Mac was far ahead of the industry at the time in graphics and imagery. I should have realized Gary's love of computers. When Gary first joined us, Gary had an Amiga and would tell me all about it. I think he told me about every new technology that was coming before it was made public.

Gary was forever trying to get me to buy Apple products. He was once a road warrior and so he knew exactly what device that would best suit my travel needs. He used me as a reference when he was applying for a job at NASA and I told the interviewer that Gary was a Mac-bigot but they couldn't get anyone any better. In fairness though, Gary was equally knowledgeable about nearly all other IT technologies. The last thing he said I had to have was an iPhone and an iPad. Within a few weeks, I got an e-mail from Gary saying that he finally broke down and got an iPad and he was sending the first message on it to me.

Another thing that always interested me was to learn to play the piano and I got a digital piano. I probably should not have been surprised but Gary knew about that too and explained the midi format and how midi devices and software synthesizers worked. ...

Following that I pursued riding motorcycles. After I took a class and got license to ride a motorcycle, I told Gary that I still didn't feel I had enough experience in riding a motorcycle. He said I could ride his bike and immediately reach for his wallet and called his insurance company and had me put on his insurance policy. That's just another example of how generous Gary was. After that he advised me on what kind of bike to buy and where to ride. He loved to ride his motorcycle in the open roads of Utah and encouraged me to go there too.

Gary at one point found out that I was into target shooting. I recall Gary bet a case of beer he could easily beat me. I said, "Gary, you have never seen me shoot. How can you say that?" He said it didn't matter and that he could beat me. But he didn't realize that I have been shooting since I was twelve. After that we started shooting together and formed a small group of folks from here that got together occasionally to have lunch and go shooting. Even Gary's Dad came with us while he was here on vacation.

The last thing that Gary and I started doing was getting our private pilot's license but we never finished that venture.

I seemed to get along with Gary from the very beginning. You might find this strange because we seem to have such different personalities. It's probably because I'm a basically a closet computer junkie. Of course, I'll never be as good as Gary but I bet you don't know anyone who goes to a flea market and buys a old laptop with a DOS operating system, then builds a special connector so I can control a lawn sprinkler system with PCAnywhere. Of course, I could not have done this with Gary's help. Sometimes I think Gary was even surprised at the many things I got into. I recall being in his office once and he wrote down a string of numbers and asked me what it was. I immediately said that that was binary for some number. I think Gary was surprised how quickly I caught on.

Being bachelors, on several occasions, we got together over the Christmas holidays. We would go shopping together and Gary usually was getting some kind of electronic gadget for Connie. We then would get some beer and spend the rest of the evening playing with all Gary's electronic stuff and talking about all sorts of things. I really enjoyed these times with him.

And so why am I boring you with all this detail? Well, it's understandable that two siblings are likely to be very similar since they come from the same genes. Two siblings may also have similar interests too. But what I am saying here is that there was no one on this planet that I had so many common interests and had so many discussions on so many different things than I had with Gary Sullivan, including my own brothers. Without a doubt, Gary made a difference in my life, both professionally and personally. When I first learned that Gary suffered a heart-attack, I sent out a note to the old computer management group and the last survivors of Western Mapping Center. I was stunned by how quickly that e-mail spread. It was as fast and the people it reached was just like the web. Across the oceans, across the country and throughout the organization, the news was shocking. I was simply stunned by the number of people who had stories to tell about Gary. I now realize the difference that Gary's life made in the lives of his family and loved ones, to his colleagues and co-workers here with his Survey family, and to his many personal friends. I now realize too that it was not Gary's superior technical skills that make him so valuable to this organization; it was his personality and inter-personal skills.

So, I would like to leave you with one last thought. It is natural for us, family and friends alike, to have feelings of sadness when we think of Gary or something that reminds us of him. That's because our loss has been so recent. With time, happier feelings will come to the surface when we think of Gary. It may not happen next week or next month but I assure you that a time will come when the thought of Gary will make you smile. That was the way Gary was and that is how he would want us to remember him. Thank you for letting me share my memories of Gary with you.