Tom Kadlec Memorial Fund

Two weeks ago, I shared with you how shattered I was to hear that my esteemed, learned and valued friend Tom Kadlec, CTO at Target, had abruptly completed his earthly mission. Your support and condolences are all much appreciated, but I would like to ask that you contribute to the lasting memory of this giant in our industry through the Tom Kadlec Memorial Fund.

The week before his passing, Tom and his remarkable Target team were inspiring and educating hundreds of eager IT professionals at #smworld2018. An additional 7,000 people enthusiastically followed the posts, and then suddenly, we were all plunged into a cruel, cold, darkness.

Last week, I was privileged to attend the memorial service for Tom in Wayzata, Minnesota. While filled with trepidation, I am so glad that I went.

Tom was undoubtedly one of the leading CTO’s of his generation. His disruptive work at Tesco and Target inspired Google, Spinaker, Verizon, HPE to great heights of achievement. He did this by building one of the most empowered, diverse tech teams in the country, not because it was instructed but because he believed in variety. I am so grateful and blessed to have worked with him during his time at Tesco and for a while at Virtual Clarity where we both sweated on Barclays, and then most recently at Target.

When someone falls away unexpectedly, there is always a painful transition from suffering many dark moments to a point where the amazing, joyful memories start to plug the aching holes, creating building blocks for a new architecture of our life.

An architecture that honors the past, incorporating all of the positives into a new sustaining construction.

Last week, I believe that I also learned something about Tom’s family. We all know Tom as the ultimate engineer, the man who connected, fabricated and confounded us. Contrasting to Tom’s engineer, Adrienne, his wife, is the architect. The structure, the certainty, the stability, and creativity. I know from experience that architects and engineers can be a volatile as well as a productive combination. Engineers thrive on architects, but in the same way, an architect’s vision without an engineer’s skill remains just a dream. Thus was their wonderful partnership.

The memorial service, led by Tom’s family and the Target executives, was a brilliant collage of his life. Yes, there was sadness, but we could also relive his expressions, remember our special moments, and hear his voice in our faithful memories. Adrienne mentioned at the service that she wished that we could all speak Czech because then we would have heard Tom without an accent, and that was apparently glorious. Personally, I will forever retain my love for his quirky accent, and Tom-isms, if anything they made him even more potent as a leader, a connecter, and a pathfinder.

It is perhaps paradoxical that a memorial service can be so uplifting, and healing. Tom the brightest technology executive; literally larger than life, not to be ignored, the comedian, always on the front-foot, always the disruptor.

What the memorial service did for me, and I hope for others was an acceleration of the journey from sadness to ‘happiness recalled’ as the dominant remembrance; offering us the building bricks for the future. Short-term grief will get no mandate to take away our happy. We will build on the joyful, not on the heartache.

Adrienne has four fabulous, solid, durable, resilient, building blocks to work with: Elias, Amos, Tal, Adina. I have seen the architect at work, and I know that her ultimate creation will be an oeuvre of love and a testimony to the engineer that we all admired and adored.

I have said before that I am not ready to say good-bye. Tom lives on in his kids; his strategy lives on in the Target team; his legacy lives on in our industry, and his humorous, self-deprecating quips, bear-hugs, advice, and guidance lives on in my heart.

It really hurts, but like Adrienne and her family, we are all called to finish the house that Tom was building. We need to complete the story of Tom because it is indeed an epic tale. The best way to contribute your building block is to donate to the Tom Kadlec Memorial Fund. https://www.gofundme.com/tomkadlecmemorialfund