I said goodbye to a friend today.

Brad Apps passed away a couple of weeks ago. His funeral was today. He was forty three.

This man. God, what do you say?

Almost a decade ago, the company I was working for had a software vendor which supplied our main systems. Due to circumstances which I won’t get into here, the future of our IT department (of which I was a part) was looking bleak. So my boss and to-date good friend made a plan to have Brad’s company basically buy us as a team.

That worked, and before too long I was working for Brad, building software that serviced not just my previous employers, but a number of their competitors in the industry.

I joined a team of people I would happily call brothers to this day, despite the fact that (with the odd exception, today being one of those) we rarely see each other. We were an odd mix of mainly immigrants, with no real shared cultural background. I was an Englishman in Australia, and there were people from the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Brazil, Poland, Papua New Guinea… only one engineer from Australia (besides Brad himself). Over time, the makeup of our band ebbed and flowed. The Aussie quotient picked up a little. But we were a good team.

And the figurehead of this odd brotherhood of immigrants was Brad. A fiercely intelligent man with a breadth of skills that, looking back now, honestly floors me.

He built a company from scratch on simple belief that he could build a system for that first client that needed it. And he came through. He did everything.

Because his success rested so heavily on his tenacity and integrity, the usual mishaps that happen in software engineering, particularly when he wasn’t the one causing those mishaps, led to some major stresses for him. In the early days of my time with Brad, I was responsible for a couple of them. And he was (rightfully) a demon when it came to making you realise: you done fucked up.

But behind that demon was a man trying to protect what he’d built. And as time went on, he grew to trust more and learned patience. I don’t know if he ever truly realised how constructive to a person’s self-worth that trust and patience was.

All I do know is that this tenacious man, who had fought cancer and seemingly beat it, this man had such a heart that he nurtured his team, and outside of work his community, that I will be eternally grateful for the lessons he taught me in compassion and integrity. The lessons he taught by example in delivering well, and owning your mistakes.

I moved on from Brad’s company after five years. I was too big for my boots and convinced that I was being wasted. We all have to leave home some time, right?

Regardless, we stayed in touch. I popped in to the old offices from time to time, and Brad always had time for me. Sometimes he even made time for me.

The craziest thing is, I didn’t realise how much of those lessons I’d learned through him until I began reflecting on his loss. I’d thought they were things I’d arrived at in my own time. Especially as regards my professional career. And writing this now, maybe even regarding being a human.

I guess that’s one last lesson you’ve taught me, boss. Recognise your influences. And thank them before you no longer can.

Safe seas, and happy sailing, Brad.