In Memory of My Father - Dick Hustvedt

I've had to take a few days off from the blog, after hearing that my father, Dick Hustvedt, had passed away last week. It's never easy losing a parent. In many ways, I grew up never really knowing him as others did, though I grew to love and appreciate him in my own way. He was severely head injured back in 1984 in an auto accident on his way to the office. Following the accident, he spent the past 20 years or so at Robin Hill Farm in New Hampshire, a truly incredible community for adults with traumatic brain injury.

I want to thank all those who have reached out to me over the past week to share your thoughts, sympathy, and especially your fond memories of Dick from years past. Many worked with him at Xerox or DEC (now HP) and it is through your stories and reflections over the years that I have built a solid and profound respect for him. Thank you.

For all those who continue to use and champion OpenVMS, it makes me proud to see his work live on. For more info on OpenVMS today, see: HP's OpenVMS systems site.

There will be a memorial service in Concord, MA in a few weeks time. For updates, see the Boston Globe notice.

UPDATE: Excellent blog post on Dick from Steve Lionel over at Intel.

Comments

[Nancy Kronenberg]

I rarely have anything public to say, so I'll have to piggy-back your your blog, Marc. I wish to add my voice to the chorus of those who have, and will continue to miss Dick.

He was one of several people who gave me wonderful opportunities at DEC and I am very proud to have been part of his team.

Here's one of my favorite stories. My first task at DEC in 1978 was to bring up VMS on the new 11/750 VAX. I'd never used a paging OS before, nor used such a complex thing to debug new hardware. Dick came and lent me a hand. I watched as hex numbers poured out on the console, and Dick called in first one microcoder and then another to fix something. One afternoon, during another avalanche of hex, Dick turned to me, his eyes wide and that impish smile: "Isn't this FUN? Just like reading a good Agatha Christie mystery!"

Well, it took me a few years to find the fun, but find it I did!

[Dick Sites]

We are all saddened by Dick's passing, as we were all saddened by the accident itself.

Dick was wonderfully opinionated but very fair. My favorite memory is coming into contact with his minimalist design of the Delta debugger -- with the single error message "Eh?"

[Scott Stallard]

Having just passed the 30th anniversary of Open VMS, it is clear that Dick's contributions to HP had quite an impact. I just heard about his passing yesterday and, though I did not know Dick personally, I join with other HP folks to send my sympathies to his family and co-workers over the years.