Duffy Wagner: On Jon’s legacy

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I knew Jon from his time in the Production Planning and Logistics department.  In that time, the Planning depart was extremely busy and complicated.  Jon’s role was to plan production for our domestic facilities and to integrate all export requirements into our factory schedules.   Jon was a perfect fit for this assignment.  He was very smart,  had a great network of contacts across the organization and was able to create optimized production plans out of very complex / changing information.   In addition to his smarts, Jon had a great sense of humor.  Even in difficult times, Jon always had a story or comment that filled the room with smiles.  Many of the people that worked for Jon ended up having long, successful careers in production planning.  Jon was the one that taught them the ropes and created a significant amount of the infrastructure that is still in use today.

Helen Carter: On tripping

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We were walking in St. Christopher’s headed for extended day with Joelle in the lead. Joelle was not quite school age and was wearing a beautiful dress and stockings. In a hurry, she lost her step and fell forward. Fortunately, she was not hurt but her dress flew up and her stockings down. She never missed a beat as she got right up and continued. Jon and I laughed about this for the years to come! The mental image will always remain with me.

Sam: On middle names

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When I was eight years old – when we were in the midst of discussing your name – it suddenly hit me that I didn’t know Daddy’s middle name.

While I thought “what is your middle name?” was a simple question, Daddy turned it into a game…a game that somehow lasted for a full week’s worth of car rides (leave it to Dad to somehow get as much mileage as possible out of a joke…).

I spent hours guessing middle name possibilities…all of which he’d respond to with some iteration of a sly smirk, “no…,” “not even close,” “maybe,” “I hate that even more than I hate my actual middle name,” “I wish” or “guess again.”

Finally worn out from the days of guessing, he relented with an anticlimactic “Louis.”