10 November 2003

The always enthusiastic and charming Chema Celorio died yesterday skydiving in Mexico.

For those of you not in Ximian who don’t know, Chema started and ran our Mexico City office, led the Ximian Setup Tools team a few years ago, was in charge of the team that managed our contract with HP, led the Ximian Desktop for a while, was one of the creators of GNOME Love, and was recently our lead sales engineer for Europe.

Chema was one of the most loving, passionate people I have known. Being around Chema always made you want to do more and try harder. He was always questioning himself, trying to grow, taking on new challenges and never backing down.

When I went to visit our office in Mexico I stayed at Chema’s house and gripped the door handle on his car till my nuckles turned white when he drove us to work. Whenever he wasn’t on sales trips or skydiving he seemed to be in my office asking good hard questions and always pushing for us to do more.

Chema was easy to love, and he will be easy to miss.