Rapido Mike McGrattan - RIP
If you follow us on Facebook you will have heard that our own Mike McGrattan lost his battle with cancer last month. The last few weeks have been very difficult for the Rapido team and of course for Mike's family. He leaves his wife, Margaret, and his son, Sam, age 12. At the bottom of this email you can read the eulogy I gave for Mike at his memorial service earlier this month.
Mike has been a vital member of our team since 2013. Rapido is not just a company; we're a family. And we've lost one of our family.
Mike was an accomplished N scale modeller and was very well loved and respected on The Railwire forum under the name of "Puddington." His Puddington Valley line has had many iterations over the years, most recently in the Kanto Sub layout that he and his son built. After receiving his cancer diagnosis, Mike and Sam worked intensively and finished a gorgeous layout in only six months.
A few years ago one of Mike's freight cars, Littl' Puddy, travelled around the world and operated on N scale layouts from here to Japan and everywhere in between. You could say that Mike's modelling got around... Click here to read Mike's 2013 blog entry about Littl' Puddy.
To commemorate Mike's contribution to our great hobby and to help his family out, we are now taking reservations for a Mike McGrattan Memorial N Scale Gondola. Jeff Arnold at Prairie Shadows has generously donated the use of his 52'6" Canadian gondola tooling.
100% of the money raised from sale of the gondola will be put into a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) for Mike's son, Sam. When he goes to college, those funds plus interest will be given to him to help fund his education.
The price of the N scale gondola is $35 plus shipping. If we can sell 500 gondolas that means Sam's RESP will have a starting value of $17,500. There are two numbers available.
Please click here to order yours if you live in Canada. Click here to order yours if you live in the United States or anywhere else. Your card will be charged now and the gons will be delivered around the end of the year. You can also order the gons through Prairie Shadows directly.
In case you want to share the link, the information page about the gon can be found here.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Remembering Mike
I had the honour of speaking at Mike's memorial service earlier this
month. Below is the text of my speech. I don't usually get nervous
speaking in front of crowds, but I was shaking when I gave it. It's not
been an easy few weeks here at Rapido.
My name is Jason
Shron, and I have had the pleasure of being Mike's boss at Rapido
Trains Inc. for the last three years. In 2013 we advertised for the
position of "Dan's clone." We wanted a clone of our operations manager,
Dan. That sounds like we were a big company, but there were actually
only three of us in the office.
Mike was
the first to respond, and he came in for an interview. We knew within
about three minutes that we had found our new team member. He was
obviously "our kind of people." I don't think we stopped laughing for
the entire hour.
Within days, Mike went
from being some guy to an indispensible member of our team. Just a
couple of months ago one of our employees cut himself badly and as I am
incredibly squeamish I just looked at Mike and he said, "I'm on it." He
left his cane by his desk and went and took care of our team member,
calming him down and fixing him up like a pro.
Another
time we got a surprise visit from the safety inspector. I shouted out
to Mike, who came and talked the talk with this guy. He managed to get
us out of a six-figure fine for having a botched-together mezzanine, and
by the time the inspector left, Mike and the inspector were drawing
track plans and Mike had sold him a bunch of freight cars.
Within
a few months I realized that Mike was becoming one of my best friends.
During Hockey Night in Canada, when the Habs would schmear the Leafs -
sorry, I mean when the Habs would meet the Leafs in a well-balanced and
hard-fought game - Mike and I would watch the game on the phone
together. Our Montreal-Toronto rivalry extended to his hospital rooms,
where I was happy to take advantage of his immobility to decorate his
surroundings with Montreal Canadiens posters.
Similarly,
we would often debate politics - loudly, in the middle of the office,
in front of customers. Those of you who saw the Justin Trudeau posters
in his hospital rooms - that was me too. My favourite was the
Photoshopped picture of Mike and Justin with the caption: "We're
brothers from different mothers."
I could
do things like decorate Mike's room with stuff he hates because that
was his sense of humour. He lived for our camaraderie and kibitzing, and
so did I.
For the last three years, if I
started to panic about work I would call Mike. He was always able to
make me see the big picture and to calm me right down. I know Mike
didn't want us to focus on our loss here today but the truth is I've
lost my confidant. Like all of you, I have an empty space inside me
right now. I keep reaching for the phone to call for Mike's advice. I
keep thinking he's going to come into my office and sit down and tell me
we're doing fine.
Mike touched the
hearts of thousands of model railroaders. The emails and messages have
been pouring in for the last two weeks. People all around the world miss
Mike, even if they never met him in person.
There is a prayer said in synagogue every Saturday morning called Nishmat Kol Chai, the Soul of Every Living Being. I'd like to read you a part of it:
"Were
our mouth as full of song as the sea, and our tongue as full of joyous
music as its multitude of waves, and our lips as full of praise as the
breadth of the heavens, and our eyes as brilliant as the sun and the
moon - we still could not thank You sufficiently, Lord our God and God
of our ancestors, and to bless Your Name for even one of the thousands
of thousands and myriad myriads of good things that you have done for
our ancestors and for us."
Until next time,
Jason
Jason Shron
President
Rapido Trains Inc.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Until next time.. Buy a gondola. Or two.
No comments:
Post a Comment