Thursday, August 11, 2005

Death from the parking lot

One of my favorite VDOTers died today. Mike Hamilton was hit by a dump truck pulling out of our VDOT parking lot in his orange truck. He apparently died instantly (as if that's any consolation to anyone).

Mike was one those old-school kind of guys. Lived and worked in northwest Loudoun County his whole life. Not many people do that any more. He was the Superintendent of the Hillsboro Headquarters. The Hillsboro office was always far and away the best performing VDOT area in Northern Virginia. This is directly because of Mike Hamilton. Lately, Mike had not been spending much time at Hillsboro because he kept filling in at other offices when their leaders turned over. Whenever we in GIS and IT developed map applications and software tools for the field staff, Mike and Hillsboro were always the very first ones to embrace them. When we sent out maps for the field to review and return, the first ones back were always from Mike. Not once in a while, but every single time. Mike was out front on everything we did.

The reason Mike was here at the main office today is that he was meeting with HR about applying for a new management opening.

He was going to retire in 3 years, and stay home to take care of his handicapped daughter.
He coached,
He volunteered,
He will be missed by many,
He will be missed by me.

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