Many of us remember Don Vial, the tireless and enthusiastic advocate for Community Networking, Bridging the Digital Divide and a voice for equitable distribution of technology who worked both inside regulatory agencies and outside with an amazing number of NGO's, committees and advisory bodies, always demonstrating a brilliant mind, unstoppable enthusiasm and energy and true and honest good will.
Sadly Don died last Friday of heart failure. All our community has lost a great friend. The Marin Independent Journal printed an article yesterday. Here is an excerpt and a URL. "I, myself, can say that I've never met a finer man in my life," said Lloyd Ulman, professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley, who picked Mr. Vial in 1964 to head the school's Center for Labor Research and Education. "He was just an exceptionally outstanding person." PUC President Michael Peevey, a longtime friend and colleague of Mr. Vial, applauded his ability to bring disparate parties together to solve difficult public policy problems. "While he was a man of firm convictions and a passionate liberal philosophy, Don succeeded because he was without ego, easy to work with and polite," he said. "He was one of the sweetest, nicest and most brilliant individuals I have ever known." http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc <http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=109E9 58D23E626C6&p_docnum=1> &p_docid=109E958D23E626C6&p_docnum=1 If you search Google with "Don Vial" and Technology you'll find many remnants of his important and vast body of work for the common good. Sybil L. Boutilier San Francisco Public Library 100 Larkin Street San Francisco, CA 94102 (415) 557-4214 phone (415) 437-4830 fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
