Chip Robie: On being full of ideas

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I met Jon when I came to work with the Philip Morris industrial engineering group, first as an intern, and then, as a bay engineer after I finished school. Jon was my mentor all through that period. Sometimes officially, sometimes not, but the advice was always very, very good.

Those were the years when PCs were fast becoming indispensable tools for our engineering duties. As we all learned and gained competencies, Jon became the go-to-wizard for Lotus programming. Jon always was perfecting macros to automate countless staff engineering tasks. The man was so full of ideas, it was hard to find time to learn about them all.

It wasn’t just work ideas. I faced life challenges where Jon Halle was again my go-to wizard. The mysteries of buying a home, understanding mortgages, real estate closings, and buying points… all revealed to me in exquisite patience by Jon. When I got married, Jon led the department initiative to collect funds for our group wedding present. In so many facets of life, Jon knew how to work with people and get things done.

Lisa: On electricity mishaps

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You Dad was not the best handyman out there.  One day, he decided to add cable to the room over the garage at our Winding Creek house.  He was going to put a TV in there for Joelle, so there could be a sitting area and bedroom area.  He had his friend Rick Walker over at the time to help out.  For whatever reason, he decided to drill a hole in the garage.  All I knew was that both Rick and your Dad were busy working on this project.  I was upstairs putting Sam down for nap when I heard a blood curdling scream telling your Dad to stop drilling.  Your Dad had drilled through the 220 line and it had vaporized the drill bit.  If he had not stopped, he could have been electrocuted.  The weirdest part about this story is that your Dad was inside the garage and Rick was outside of the garage when the drilling was occurring.  Instead of having the garage door open to freely talk, so they could be a foot away from each other, they had the garage door down.  Not well thought out.  Luckily, things worked out OK, but what a scary day it was.