Skip

This has been a sad time. Steve Jobs passed away on Wednesday. Tonight, I learned that a friend, also an Apple employee, was killed in an accident a month ago. I was just talking about him at lunch today.

Skip Haughay and I met at the opening of the Apple Store in the Christiana Mall in Delaware in 2004.  In the summer of 2006, Skip and I coincidentally both began contract work at Apple and Google, respectively. He told me about when he first passed Steve Jobs in the hallway. Steve had a tray of food. Skip’s boss noticed that he was in shock from the sighting of his idol, and simply explained, “He needs to eat too.” A few months after Skip started working with Apple on a project basis, I got this email:

Hey Wysz:

Call me.  You need to talk to Apple's newest iPod software engineer.

Skip

We began our full-time positions with the companies on the same day. We didn’t hang out much, but we’d occasionally email each other extremely dorky messages whenever Apple or Google was in the news. He continued to be a complete Apple fan, and would excitedly send me quick notes with pictures from launch parties or even the latest poster in the main lobby. One subject line read, “Look at this new t-shirt! This company rocks!” He hosted me for a couple of lunches at Apple, and I had him over to lunch at Google. He was excited to see the dogs that people brought to work.

He absolutely loved horses and Apple, so I’m pretty sure he was living his dream. I took this picture of Skip and Woz when we went to a Segway Polo match in San Francisco.

If you were close to Skip, feel free to send me an email. I have a couple more pictures I can share.