$1000 haircut to fight childhood cancer

One of my friends in the industry lost his son last week.  His son, Glenn S, was a student at K-State, twenty-four years old, a resident assistant, a biomedical engineering student, and from what I see and read, he was brilliant and had a very bright future ahead of him.

You already know that I didn't know Glenn.  But his father Jerry has been a friend of mine for fourteen years.  Jerry is a thought leader in HVAC design and engineering, and a distinguished lecturer for ASHRAE.  He is extremely proud of Glenn.  When we were able to talk about our lives outside of business I often heard about Glenn's life, both in and out of his studies.  Any father would have been proud to have a son like that. 

Glenn had been treated for Melanoma around seven years ago, successfully.  Unfortunately the disease recurred and we lost him on February 27 of this year.

Through study, practice, and experience, Jerry has become a thought leader in human comfort.  He presented brilliantly on this topic to many of my associates and customers.  If ever I had a client that didn't have the time of day for me, I could drop Jerry's name and suddenly the doors to their office would open.  After a meeting of an hour or two with Jerry, engineers would leave a little smarter (sometimes a lot smarter) and with some new ideas to help them in their designs. 

The irony is that the human comfort we engineer in our spaces loses significance pretty quickly when we enter this reality.  It doesn't really matter what the temperature, relative humidity and draft ratio might be if we are faced with the possibility of loss, or worse yet the actual loss, of a loved one.  So the expert who taught us all about the physics and mechanics of human (thermal) comfort looks beyond his studies and expertise for the comfort of family and friends.

As my own wife is a breast cancer survivor, I have some understanding of this.  Her treatment - surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation - ended four and a half years ago.  But returning to the oncologist's office for scans and blood work sets the mind on a "what-if?" spin that is hard to stop.  She's brave and we manage, but we get the irony too.  If I join her at the oncologist's office, I usually don't remember whether the room was comfortable or not.  I just sweat and hope for the all-clear.  We've been lucky. 

Friendship is the only comfort that I can offer Jerry and the rest of Glenn's family and friends.  But beyond this electronic post, I feel like something real needs to happen.  And because of that, I'm going to shave my head and fundraise for St. Baldrick's to help fight childhood cancer and honor Glenn's memory.  Through research I hope that we can make some progress to prevent disease or improve outcomes for children who get cancer. 

To wrap this all up, I am asking for your donation.   

Once I hit $1,000.00 in raised money, the hair comes off the top - all of it - and the "after" photo will be posted on the St. Baldrick's site.  My goal is to raise  $2,500.00 this week!

So please do me a favor.  If your credit card is handy, make your donation NOW.  If it's not handy, make yourself an electronic reminder to do it at some point TODAY (or worst case, TOMORROW) when that card will be nearby.

Have a fantastic week.  Making that donation will start it off right.  I appreciate you thinking about it.