{"id":6458,"date":"2018-01-21T10:13:52","date_gmt":"2018-01-21T18:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/?p=6458"},"modified":"2018-01-21T13:18:02","modified_gmt":"2018-01-21T21:18:02","slug":"remembering-our-friend-winston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/21\/remembering-our-friend-winston\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering our friend Winston"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cImpedance mismatch.\u201d It\u2019s a funny little phrase to hear in everyday conversation, but one that Winston Hendrickson<\/a>\u2014longtime VP of engineering for Photoshop and many other Adobe efforts, friend and mentor to more people than I could possibly count\u2014liked to sprinkle into chats. He\u2019d use it to flag things that just didn\u2019t make sense, little disconnects in the universe.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking of it ever since learning yesterday that Winston had passed away following a long illness. I still can\u2019t believe I\u2019m typing these words. Something in the universe feels disconnected, out of phase.<\/p>\n

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As the dozens of remembrances now flooding Facebook can tell you, Winston was a beloved dad, respected leader, and passionate photographer. After years at Apple leading teams that began the Mac OS turnaround, he\u2019d spent more than 17 years driving development at Adobe. We worked closely together to launch Adobe Bridge, helping tie together the very first version of Creative Suite.<\/p>\n

I was a bit surprised later when Winston came over to lead Adobe’s digital imaging teams. I hadn\u2019t realized that on any given weekend you\u2019d likely find him lugging a 600mm lens & big SLR to his daughters\u2019 softball games, an auto race at Laguna Seca, or a photo walk up California\u2019s coastline. Photography took him from Tasmania to Antarctica and beyond, shooting everything from modern dance to SWAT teams in training. (See more here<\/a> & here<\/a>.) Winston had that special quality that distinguishes many key leaders at Adobe\u2014a deep and passionate connection to the work, the tools, and most importantly the fellow practitioners we felt privileged to call customers.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t seen Winston in just over a year, since the day<\/a> he dropped by to help my kids and many others explore some new Adobe augmented reality tools. He was exactly as he\u2019d always been, looking good & always ready to share a salty joke. (Whenever we\u2019d hear self-congratulation getting a little thick over the years, we loved deflating it by invoking Pulp Fiction’s Winston Wolf: \u201cWell, let\u2019s not start\u2026\u201d I\u2019ve gotta think he\u2019d laugh out loud hearing\u00a0that<\/em>\u00a0reference stuck in a eulogy.)<\/p>\n

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Therefore yesterday\u2019s news came as a shock. \u201cThe only easy day was yesterday,\u201d said a sign on Winston\u2019s door. Well, yesterday wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve struggled to write any kind of worthwhile tribute, to find some Big & Meaningful Theme. Listening to colleagues\u2019 and friends\u2019 remembrances, though, I\u2019ve started to think more in terms of a mosaic: we all reach back across time, pulling up whatever bunch of shining fragments we can, and we lay them together to draw the outlines of a life.<\/p>\n

\u201cShould you live for your r\u00e9sum\u00e9 or your eulogy?\u201d Winston\u2019s life showed how one can serve both, and we\u2019re all blessed for it. Thanks for everything, big guy, and safe travels. \u2014J.<\/p>\n

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\u201cImpedance mismatch.\u201d It\u2019s a funny little phrase to hear in everyday conversation, but one that Winston Hendrickson\u2014longtime VP of engineering for Photoshop and many other Adobe efforts, friend and mentor to more people than I could possibly count\u2014liked to sprinkle into chats. He\u2019d use it to flag things that just didn\u2019t make sense, little disconnects […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6458"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6458"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6466,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6458\/revisions\/6466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}