One of the great Y2K warriors, Harlan Smith has died on August 10/99 in Florida. Known to many in the Y2K internet community, his contributions on various lists and his web site writings have served to move the Y2K effort from a total disaster to only a potential disaster.

Harlan and I worked together off and on throughout the three odd years I've known him. I had just completed a Y2K awareness program with the Canadian Federal government and the Ontario government to take Y2K seriously, so was looking around for a new project. Harlan answered my call when I asked for ideas on the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) list. He had some articles he had written that needed promotion and implementation around the world.

I assisted him with the original drafts in the editorial sense with structure and wording, but in the main, they were his writings, his ideas and deserved full credit. We spent countless hours communicating together using IRQ into the wee hours of the night and I got to know him very well, yet we've never met face to face. Those articles were one of the first used at the New Millennium Salons and many other Y2K resource sites as credible material with which to move forward. I sent his Papers to numerous federal governments and Y2K Program offices. He returned the favour later critiquing my work before postings.

Harlan didn't take kindly to unfounded conjecture or mindless opinionations that weren't backed by sound facts. Sometimes those with a denialist or a false agenda would come into the firing range of Harlan and he would let them have it, both barrels, using his extensive computer technical knowledge and an unbelievable knowledge of reference URL's. It would leave us members of the various lists he subscribed to, in chuckles and those foolish enough to write BS, think twice before posting nonsense again.

I'll miss his late night IRQ calls. He was a good friend and a great man. Y2K history will be kind to him.

Goodbye old friend....

-- Gary Allan Halonen (njarc@ica.net), August 16, 1999

Answers

Thanks for the good words about Harlan, Gary. He cared a great deal for millions of people he'd never met, and would never know him, or know how much he has done for them.

cynthia

-- Cynthia Beal (cabeal@efn.org), August 22, 1999.