Ted Weitzel
CFO, G2
Hi friends! My name is Ted Weitzel, and I worked with Colleen at G2. She would always have us, at every single one of our events, do a little warm-up/a little icebreaker. So, I’m going to say “hi, friends,” and I want every single one of you to look at your next-door neighbor and say a big “hi, friend,” back to them. Hi, friends!
As you can hear, a lot of us don’t know each other. But that’s the great thing about Colleen. She brought so many people together. She can bring this sort of mass of humanity together; and by the time we all leave today, I know that she would be very happy if we all call each other friends.
So I want to share another little thing with you. It’s a—10, 10, 9, 9, 9, 8, 8, 8, 7, 7, 7--this is my speaking voice. Colleen would make me do that every time before I got on stage at public events, so I didn't sound like a 12-year-old. I appreciate it every day that I get to a podium now. Colleen wore many different hats at G2. She was the type of person that you can take a problem, a project, anything to. And even if you were dreading it, she would lead off with that giant Colleen smile, and just say, “What a wonderful challenge—I’m going to kill this for you—get out of my way.” And she would just go and crush it.
She was my/our/G2’s get-stuff-doner. She didn’t have a real job role. But if it was something that didn’t fit into the box, it was Colleen-work. To bring up a few examples of what Colleen brought to G2. We would have these big, giant events, and the president of the company would come to Colleen and say, “We need a way to entertain everybody in the beginning. Do you know how to produce a movie?” She would say, “No, but I’ll figure it out.” Two weeks later we would have an amazing, wonderful movie—a moving movie--that everyone could just get behind and rally behind and look back on and say we did all of that together.
She was our IT person for a while. She had no idea about IT. I walked in one day, and the entire office was just a disaster. Colleen is in the IT closet just plugging stuff in. She’s on the phone with some tech person, from who knows where, and just following the instructions. Taking pictures. Plugging this thing into that thing--just didn't matter. Most people would say not my job not my problem, I’m out of here. But, no, she would jump in to solve it. She would organize all of our [inaudible} meetings; and that one she actually hated, because she would spend time making sure everything was perfect. Then the CEO would get up there and eat the mic.
She planned amazing parties for all of us; and I know that she would look around today and go, pretty good. second to what I would have done. Just kidding. This is an absolutely beautiful event to remember her by. She would do these amazing kick-off races, where she would get 300 to 400 people running around the city for an entire day, just having fun, enjoying that time outside of all of the hard work and effort. Rewarding themselves with the friendships that they made in their career, in their journey, at work. She brought so much to our organization.
Now I'd like everyone to join me in a meditation. A meditation that helped me when I lost my mother, and a meditation that I think helped everyone at G2 when we lost Colleen. If everyone could close your eyes. I can see you all, so make sure you do it!
Take five deep in and out breaths [pause]. Remember that loss is a part of life; and without loss, sometimes it's hard to remember all of the good, wonderful parts of life. That fear, anger, creativity, appreciation, joy--especially joy—that can be a hard one--can all coexist together.
Open your eyes. Appreciate today the way that Colleen appreciated every day she spent with us. Thank you to the Gleason family for inviting me here today and letting all of our family and G2ers take part.
