Remembering Tom Dowdy

Hey Pablo! I wanted to post some comments. With all the talk about QDGX and the pictures... This is so much how I remember Tom.

[This may get a bit longwinded, so feel free to cut it down if you need to.]

I started at Apple in '91 in DTS' PIGS (Printing Imaging & Graphics Support) group as a printing support guy, and pretty much from the beginning began interacting with Tom, Dan and Hugo (the Print Shop) for printer meetings, printing software support and eventually QuickDraw GX. About 3 years later, I moved over to the Print Shop and worked directly with them. I thought so much of these guys that I pursued a position with them when there didn't even appear to be one, and I was lucky enough to get in. These are the guys I wanted to work with at Apple, and I learned more by working with Tom and Dan (and Sam and Hugo, but they eventually left, the bums) than I could have learned anywhere else.

To be clear, the things I learned weren't as much about software engineering as they were about living life. Tom Dowdy impressed me from the day I met him. If something was wrong in the Apple world, he let people know it, and it didn't matter if he reported to them or they were 2 levels above him. I can't remember a time where he recognized a problem and left it in hopes that someone else would handle it. It didn't always work, but he tried, and that's what mattered.

Tom was not only a team player, he was a team leader, and he inspired others to lead by example. I gained so much confidence working with Tom because he provided opportunities, encouragement, and had faith in me. I know that he's continued to affect my life and opportunities to this day because of that.

Tom was a great Apple engineer, no question. But, one of the things that made him so great is that he never stopped getting excited about possibilities. I remember him telling me he was hooking up his entire house to be controlled remotely, and his excitement about how cool that would be. I remember coming into his office one day and hearing a few seconds of strange noises and him excitedly explaining how he had managed to implement a surround sound decoding protocol. I remember how proud he was of Darkside of the Mac, which in his long list of accomplishments may not seem significant but was actually a very personal accomplishment for him.

When I knew Tom, he was just getting into the cooking craze. I think he had talked about possibly going to the Culinary Institute during an upcoming sabbatical. He was already knowledgeable about wine and cognac though. Once, after a beer bash in the R&D campus, several of us were outside his office, drinking some of my cognac (Remy Martin V.S.O.P.) out of the only thing I could find... paper cups. Tom was so frazzled when he saw us drinking this expensive cognac from paper cups and began explaining the problems with drinking it that way and how it was a crime against cognac. He eventually ran off and returned with some glasses for us to use instead. And, he was right. It was better that way.

At some point during the project we were working on, I got my work done ahead of deadline and was given a bottle of red wine (an Opus) as a perk. I, of course, knew nothing about that (other than the paper cup lesson mentioned above) and Tom said, "Listen to me carefully. Do NOT drink this bottle for at least 5 years." Over the next few days, he repeatedly stopped by to remind me that this was a good wine that needed to rest for a few years, before it was awakened and allowed to breath. At that point, it could be consumed, but NOT in paper cups. I took his advice, and just last month, I finally opened it. Such a weird coincidence with him passing only a few weeks later...

As sad and as wrenching as it is to see someone so young, so gifted, and so genuinely nice leave us, it's become clear to me this past week just how much he left behind. I don't mean his work on SimpleText, iTunes, QuickTime and other technologies. All of that was "good stuff," but it's fleeting and eventually, it will fade into the past as software tends to do. Tom's great contribution has been the people he touched and inspired. People like me. People like the developers he worked with and who he treated like they mattered. People like the chefs he inspired and who are also mourning his loss. Tom's footprints have crossed paths with so many of us and he's left lasting impressions on us. His legacy is what he gave to all of us and what he showed us by example and encouragement that we could become.

When I first heard that Tom had died, my heart sank and all I could think was, "what a loss." Five days later, my heart is still broken, but now I realize what a gift he was and how blessed we were to know him. He is truly someone who changed and inspired people.

I wish I'd kept up with Tom and more of the folks at Apple when I left, but you always think there's going to be time. Then one day you wake up, read your email and realize just how fleeting time is. Yet another lesson Tom's now taught me.

I miss you, buddy. Thanks for everything.

- Dave

PS. If anyone has any pictures of the old Print Shop group that I'm actually in (it's ok Pablo, I think I had a cheesy mustache back then anyway), could you either post them somewhere or email me? I only have a few pictures from the Tokyo developer kitchen that Dan and I put on, and I'd love to have others if there are any.