Farewell John Warne

I just heard that a friend of mine, John Warne, died this morning. The immediate cause was pneumonia, after he had been diagnosed with liver cancer five weeks ago.

I first met John Warne back in 1987 when I was doing my PhD and he was working at ANSA on behalf of Nortel. He was a great guy, always very passionate about his work but also very down to earth. Over the years our paths crossed time and time again, and no matter how long it had been between meetings it was always like it has only been a few days. He was a great guy to listen to, with some wonderful stories about things he'd seen and done over the years. I remember him telling the story about how he'd been sent by Nortel to work on the Hong Kong Race Course and that they (the Race Course) had so much money they would fly him first class, best hotels etc. He was a good mentor and always willing to spend time to understand problems or share his knowledge openly. In short, John was one of those rare people in our industry: a really nice and intelligent person, someone you looked forward to seeing.

It's a very sad day. I'm not sure what else I can say. Farewell John, it was an honour and a pleasure to know you.