James Jessiman Memorial Award for 2014 awarded to Sergio Reano

[Willy Tschager]

The LDraw.org Steering Committee wished the circumstances for the announcement of the 2014 James Jessiman Memorial Award (JJMA) recipient would have been different. Those are also the reasons why it took us longer than usual to publish this announce . The LDraw SteerCo had already agreed on Sergio Reano as recipient when news of his sudden passing came in. We therefore decided to contact his wife Cristina and ask for a laudatory speech.

I wish Sergio could be here to celebrate with you! He was really deserving this award. I'm saying this not because he is my husband, but for the fact that he dedicated a good protion of his spare time to LDraw, sometimes even his own sleep. He had two great passions: LEGO, which he collected from childhood (we still have all his old sets and have added, over time, those of our children) and programming. With the SR3D Sergio found a way to combine his interests and created an original, innovative virtual environment, which allowed everyone to build the models of their dreams. As I already wrote he dedicated his very heart and soul to his software: late into the evening, on holidays, and at home… Even when he was not working on it, he thought about how to add new functionality, how to overcome problems, or how to satisfy requests coming from his “fans”. Finding a bug caused much agony!!
Lots have written to me after he his passing telling me their admiration for his work and their esteem for him. Sergio really loved his “creature” and he was working on it until the his very last seconds of his life. He was a generous and capable man and would have given so much in the days to come.

Kind regards,

Cristina

More information on the JJMA can be found at: http://www.ldraw.org/article/222.html

Willy Tschager
On behalf of the LDraw.org Steering Committee