https://everloved.com/life-of/stephen-jurczyk/obituary/
It seems just like yesterday that I was at NASA Langley working for a short time under then Director Stephen G. Jurczyk. He passed away just recently on Thanksgiving of 2023. He helped propel my career in the later stages of my time at Langley. One thing that I appreciated a lot about Stephen Jurczyk was that he came up through the organization as an engineer. Not all NASA administrators or SES are engineers nowadays. I appreciated this fact about him, because I felt that he could understand the needs of the research staff of the center. Reading books like Engineer in Charge gave me a deep appreciate of the history of NASA, and also gave me a viewpoint that the leaders of NASA should be first and foremost learned people of science. Unfortunately, this is not so much the case today. I’m hopeful that future leaders of NASA come from backgrounds in engineering especially, instead of political appointees with degrees in economics or finance.
Another important lesson is that one should try and depart love ones with kind words, because one never knows when will be the last time someone says goodbye.