Letters I received when my husband, Ron Shirley, passed away from pneumonia on February 20, 2003:
Ron’s boss, Bill Musa, had this to say at his funeral (edited) . . .
The last few days have been tragic. I
spoke to Danna Friday about wanting to say something here so I went through
Ron’s personnel file, which was about a foot high with all kinds of papers and
commendations. Wherever Ron went was total excellence. He’s been the backbone
of any operation. He is the most mild-tempered, even-tempered person I’ve ever
known. Good friend. Outstanding employee.
In the company he was held in the highest
regard; anywhere throughout the company, at the President level down, even up
to the Admirals, including the Japanese Navy, when he spent time there.
His achievements have been very high. He
kept a lot of these things to himself. As far as Computer Sciences Corporation
(CSC), he started out as Principal Engineer, then Senior Principal Engineer,
from there the highest technical position of Principal Computer Scientist,
which is at the Director level or one level below the Vice President. These
achievements are something to be proud of but Ron didn’t want me to let anyone
know when his last promotion happened. That’s the kind of a guy Ron was.
He has left a tremendous hole in the
operation world-wide in the Aegis program—both in our ships and other ships
from other nations.
I would say that everyone, as far as a
goal for work or achievements, would be to look up and say, “If I could just
get half of Ron’s passion and work ethic.”
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One of Ron’s
co-workers, Bill Robinson, could not get a flight out of Michigan to come to the memorial service but he
sent me the following e-mail a few days later. I treasure these words of
admiration about my husband . . .
To put things into perspective, Ron
and I had worked very near each other at the Aegis Test Team in Pascagoula for a couple of years. We were both
the head-down, trying to solve problems type, so we really never had much
interaction until we got swept up into the Japanese AEGIS program.
Ron’s demeanor and attitude are
what made him immediately stand out. He was pure solution without trying to
promote himself or “get off easy” by spending energy politicking and benefiting
from other people’s work. Sir Isaac Newton, in speaking of his own great
accomplishments had said, “If I can see so far, it is because I am standing on
the shoulders of giants” . . . He was speaking of intelligence giants like Ron.
Ron just oozed with integrity. His
word and motives were far beyond question. If a man is only as good as
his word, I know of no one who comes close to Ron. People would just
instinctively know that Ron was a person of such caliber. On many occasions I
grinned in amazement to watch people of high importance just hang on every word
Ron spoke, as he gave his opinion or analysis on some
multi-million dollar, hundreds-of-people problem. Never would
it be necessary to mull over Ron’s words, wondering if he was embellishing in
search of the limelight. Ron was the symbol of unselfish excellence within the
AEGIS world. His motives were beyond reproach. I know of no other in such
a highly competitive arena that had the same credibility.
We spent lots of time together in
the dark corners of warships. Staying out of the way, yet just waiting to be
overrun with panicked managers, engineers, officers, and sailors who wanted an
explanation for some major event that was unfolding in the highly complex AEGIS
world . . . Mach 3 missiles flying (or not flying), guns tracking, aircraft
screaming, radios and radars buzzing. We would work 24 hours straight
(Saturday, Sunday), no matter what it took to provide the answer; everyone
depended on our work and we would never fail. When the panic subsided, we would
go back to a dark corner, talk about our families, and our great plans for
fishing. This last observation I would say is the mark of a true yet simple
family man. He loved meeting the challenge of a highly technical occupation,
yet family and the simple things in life are where his thoughts and heart were
centered.
While away from home, non-working
hours were just as simple. Never a flashy rental car or luxury hotel; Ron would
seek the simple places. Time was spent reading books about fishing or the stock
market (no one was standing in line for our opinions here). When we had to get
out, we would spend the day at one of those multi-movie theaters just going
from movie to movie, mostly just marking time until we got home.
On many of these adventures we
suffered together; dragging luggage through airports and on/off helicopters,
horrible food, horrible conditions, no sleep, no showers, cramped, cold, sick,
and tired. On several occasions we put our high-powered analytical skills
together to ponder our decisions to be there. We always concluded everyone was
wrong about us . . . we were not intelligent men! Somehow, we always got
each other through it, usually with a smile and a great sense of satisfaction.
I looked up to Ron like a big brother. As men go, he was a truly great one. I
will deeply miss him.
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