For those of you wondering about the dedication of this site to Garrett M. Fox, here's the story.

First of all, Garrett was NOT a blood relative of mine in spite of the fact we shared the surname of Fox.  Rather, he was an employee of mine during my career at NASA.  He came to me as an ambitious, hard-working young man who could take any task and not only complete it at lightning speed but the quality was better than most.  He knew how to think on his feet, didn't hesitate to share his outstanding ideas, and in numerous way was a manager's dream come true.  Since we shared the same surname I started to jokingly call him "my adopted son" to which he responded by often calling me "mom."  Of course those who didn't know the true situation took it at face value and assumed he was really my son, which we both found incredibly amusing.  I was okay with that because I was proud to have him in my section and would have happily claimed him as my child. 

The vast majority of employees (slackers excluded) who ever worked for me will tell you that I looked after my people.  My management philosophy was straight out of Deming, for those of you familiar with such things, which was "take care of your people and they'll take care of you."  I did my best to do this for Garrett and even got myself in trouble at least once when on his behalf I crossed over lines of authority I wasn't supposed to.  To me it was worth it for someone like that.  Eventually he moved on when cutbacks began at NASA and he went to work for a company where he could put his bachelor's degree in finance, which he earned while working for me, to good use.

When I was putting this website together my programming skills failed me when it came to the compatibility section, specifically where you input two different Sun signs to get an overview of how they interact.  Garrett came to my rescue as the computer guru he was and wrote the code.  The reason he was so skilled on the computer arose from the fact he had spent so much time on one when he was a child.  You see, Garrett had cystic fibrosis and thus was limited in his physical activity.  Rather than watch TV or play computer games, he got serious about computers.

However limited he may have been physically, he wasn't limited intellectually, with regard to his work ethic, or ultimately his dreams.  In spite of the various health crises he encountered throughout his short life, he became an exemplary employee, worked his way through college to get a degree in finance for which he had an online blog, was an accomplished photographer, connoisseur of a variety of beverages, traveled throughout Europe with his wife, and numerous other accomplishments too numerous to mention.  People with cystic fibrosis seldom live beyond 30 so he packed as much living in as he could.  Shortly before his untimely death he said he had his dream wife, dream job and dream car.  That is more than most of us can say who have lived two and even three times longer.  To make a long, sad story short, he had a lung transplant which enriched his life for a short time, then unfortunately his body went into rejection and he ultimately died on October 27, 2011.  He was a mere 28 years old.

Losing him was something everyone always knew would happen but his fate was heartbreaking nonetheless.  He will be greatly missed.  So, the least I could do was acknowledge how much he meant to me in a media he loved. 

Here's to you, Garrett! 

It was a honor and privilege to have known you. 

The example you set was amazing and I'll never forget you.

"Mom"