Over the weekend I attended a memorial service for Dr. Bill Peterson, the former Director of the Earth System Science Center Computing Facility. Bill hired me out of graduate school in 1991 and got me involved in IT and computational science. Bill died back in October and his memorial service was held at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. Bill earned his Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography from RSMAS.
When I saw the invitation to Bill's memorial service it made me laugh. There right on the top was a starfish. I think of starfish every time I remember Bill.
A starfish is a remarkable creature, with its organs distributed throughout. If you cut a starfish, each part can grow into a new starfish. Lately business gurus have used a
starfish to describe agile organizations, with business knowledge distributed throughout. But business gurus and agile organizations don't make me think of Bill...
There's a story of an older gentleman who is walking along the beach the morning after a particularly rough storm. There are countless starfish scattered on the sand drying out in the heat of the Sun. As the older gentleman walks down the beach he sees a young boy, picking up starfish and throwing them back into the water where they'll be carried back to the sea.
As he comes up to the boy, he says, "Hey kid, there must be hundreds even thousands of starfish drying up on this beach and beaches like this all down the coast. Don't you know you can't save them all."
The boy flings another into the sea and says, "No, sir, I can't, but I just made a big difference to that one."
I picture that older gentleman as Bill and I see him getting that look on his face where he furls his brow and grabs his beard and says, "You know, kid, you're right." Then he starts to throw some back in himself.
You see Bill knew he couldn't save the world, but I think he must have come to realize that he could save one career, one life at a time. There was a time when I was "drying out on the beach" and Bill picked me up and threw me back in. I don't know when he started doing this, but I know many of the Penn State guys he hired over the years were the beneficiaries of Bill's mentoring.
Long ago I decided I couldn't pay him back. How can you? How can anyone?
I decided instead that I should pay it forward. That's how we should remember Dr. Bill Peterson -- as a friend, a boss, a second dad, a leader, a visionary, but most of all as a mentor.
Remember Bill and pay it forward.
