This morning, when I came in to work, I found this email from my boss, Rick Rashid, head of Microsoft Research. With his permission, I reprint it here.
From: Rick Rashid
Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2005 10:08 AM
To: MS Research-WorldWide
Subject: James 'Scotty' Doohan dies at age 85
I realize this has nothing to do with Microsoft or MSR, but I wanted to comment on the passing of someone who brought a lot of joy and entertainment and just a bit of inspiration to a lot of people.
James Doohan died this morning at 5:30 here at his home in Redmond. He was 85. For those of you who are not science fiction fans (and never attended one of the Star Trek movies I hosted), James played "Scotty", the chief engineer of the Enterprise in the original Star Trek series. The character he played was the kind of "can-do" engineer that frankly I always have aspired to be. No problem seemed unsolvable for him – it was only a matter of time. If you were in trouble, he would always be there to "beam you up" and get you back safe to your ship. His character may have been one of the very few in the history of television whose idea of a good time was reading journal articles in his cabin.
I was lucky enough a few years ago to do a Microsoft developer event with James in Bellevue. We did a great little skit on stage where he was in character as "Scotty" and we talked about the role of an engineer and the advice "Scotty" could pass on to our engineers at Microsoft. It was a lot of fun.
I also had the privilege that day to have lunch with him and hear his stories about World War II and landing on the beach at Normandy. I remember hearing his story and wondering what it must have been like waiting in the cold and dark in the boats knowing that you were almost certainly going to be killed or injured minutes after landing. As he told the story I discovered that James himself received multiple gunshot wounds almost immediately into the engagement. He spent months recovering and lost one of his fingers (which leads to a little known piece of trivia that you never see both hands visible in any Star Trek TV show or movie).
When I first got to Redmond it was not uncommon to see him at the QFC. As he got older and his health deteriorated it became harder to spot him around town. His last public appearance that I know about was the installation of his "star" on Hollywood Blvd. Curtis Wong told me that he actually sat next to him on the plane the day James flew down for that event.
James Doohan will be missed (as will "Scotty").
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8643634/
