In loving memory, ian preston

This page is dedicated to the memories of our beloved lost son, brother, cousin, nephew, grandson and friend, Ian Preston. Please feel free to leave your own memories or thoughts as you read and browse the site.
Ian, we love you...we miss you.

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The eulogy, december 21st, 2015
Delivered by stuart, ian's dad

I’m Stuart.  I’m Ian’s father.

First of all, I want to thank you all for being here, and for all the support you’ve given our family. Your love and support has been so very important in helping us get through this nightmare.

Last week, Ian made the decision to take his own life, a decision that leaves us all emotionally devastated and confused while we deal with something truly unimaginable. 

There’s no way I can capture Ian’s large personality in a 5-10 minute speech.  So what I want to talk about today are a few special memories of my son, share with you the boy, the man I knew.  Ian was...complex...deep...intense, fun, driven, focused.  He became a man I looked up to.  He was strong in his convictions.  He had a great sense of humor, and man, that smile -- could light up a room and always warmed my heart.  I hope many of you will come up here to today and fill in with your own memories and stories.

Ian was born in the month of December.  He came to us a month early, ready for life.  I’m not going to read off his biography, but I do want to share a few childhood moments:

1. Babies cry when you put them to bed.  Parents are tortured.  The strategy is to wait it out, wait for the kid to cry himself to sleep.  Ian would would just throw up on himself and win that game.
2. I ran a contracting business out of our house, and I needed more storage, so I built a shed.  Little toddler Ian in his corduroy overalls and plastic saw, helped me.  When we were finished, he uttered his first complete sentence, “Daddy made this.”
3. When he got his vaccinations as a kid, it took four adults to hold him down as he wrythed and screamed.  Imagine how we felt as parents, when, at age 5, he was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and would have to get 4-5 shots every day.  But he was a tough son of a bitch, and it was quickly second nature.
4. Right around that same time, Ian taught himself how to ride a bike [at age 4] -- it was freaky.  He was riding around our driveway, and all the neighborhood kids came over to watch.  “Look at that little kid riding his bike!’
5. He was a charismatic kid...joyous, an organizer from day 1. He covered our house in signs, he had an invention phase, he wanted to open an amusement park at age 7- no, a real amusement park, but if you played one of the cool games he invented be prepared to never actually play because he was coming up with more games and more rules of play :D  As he got older, one of the homeschool moms called him ‘the park day pied piper’
6. He welcomed his little sister with joyful, protective love (no jealousy at all), He made killer forts in our house with this beloved little sister and never made her feel like less than important.
7. He started programming when he was 7, after watching me programming.  He sat by my side and caught the bug.   I remember coming home from a job one day, and Cynthia asked me to look at his code, ‘Is this real?’  I looked at it.  It looked real, but how could it be?  It was.  He compiled it, burned it to CDs and passed it around to his homeschool buddies.  It taught kids math.  From that point on, our mission as parents was to feed his head.  I had to buy an illegal Chinese-copied book on algorithms for him off of eBay -- he demanded it.  We built a computer together.  He hung out at Heatsync in Mesa.  He got   mentored by a homeschool Dad who developed code at Intel, Scott Bailey.  He never lost his voracious pursuit of learning to create better code.

Ian was a goal setter, a goal getter.  In his personal effects, we found a list of goals he wanted to accomplish by age 20, including salary, savings, running, a car, and more.  He even listed a stretch goal and accomplished that, too.  His running goal this year was to complete a 10k (6 miles).  Three days before taking his own life, he ran a half marathon - 13.1 miles - and placed first in his age group.  

I want to tell you about Ian, The programmer:  As his parents, we could see his programming talent and all the study and work that went into it.  But he wasn’t so sure of his own talents.  So, at age 15, when he listed Axosoft as a ‘dream’ internship, we had to encourage him to apply.  Cynthia and Ian made a handwritten contract that if he applied for an internship there, she’d buy him a diet soda.  They wrote it out, signed it, and he applied.  

He went through Hamid’s rigorous brainteaser interview.  At one point, Ian just flat out said he didn’t know the answer to one of the teasers.  It looked to Hamid like he wasn’t even trying.  Hamid said, ‘This is serious!’  Ian just said, ‘I know!  But I also know that I don’t know the answer!’  He was offered the job.

He completed his internship there, then started working for Ben Hal at Benerino Studios in Gangplank.  It was a great opportunity for Ian to work on different projects and get mentored by one of the best guys are Gangplank.  Ben was such a big part of Ian’s programming career.

It was at Gangplank, at a Pitch Night, when Hamid walked in and saw Ian.  You see, Hamid always treated Ian as if he was his own Padawan, he was so proud of Ian.  He went right up to Ian and asked, ‘Why aren’t you working for me at Axosoft?’  Ian said, ‘I don’t know’  And then he was back at Axosoft, not as an intern, but as a full member of the team.  

Ian was so proud.  His adult, professional life was starting.  He got an apartment up in Scottsdale.  Actually, *I* got an apartment up there -- the kid was still just 17.  I also got a Mazda Miata. and Ian became part of this goofy, fun team at Axosoft.  He loved the nerf gun wars, when they would play pranks on him.  He was one of them, and he was really in his element.

Hamid even made Ian the ‘CEO’ of a startup at Axosoft.  I’m not sure what they call it, but it’s a month where Hamid gives his team a month to create a couple new products.  He allowed Ian to be the Project Manager, called him the CEO.  The idea and project was PureChat.  PureChat became a real product, and well over a year after Ian left Axosoft, PureChat got over a million dollars of funding and Hamid is now the CEO.

He wasn’t at Axosoft any longer because he got recruited away by HiringSolved.  Now, getting Ian away from Axosoft was no insignificant feat.  You see, HiringSolved has it’s cofounder, Trevor.  Ian knew Trevor from his time hanging out at Gangplank.  Trevor was a guy who shared Ian’s passion for pushing the envelope with code but writing GOOD code.  Ian knew that with Trevor’s guidance, he could become the programmer he wanted to be, so he joined HiringSolved.

I remember having a phone conversation with kiddo during this time.  He was worried that he might start to accept code standards that were below his own standards.  It was really bugging him.  I told him a quick story of how’d I’d come to accept the subpar standards that were all around me while I was in the Army and that it bothered me my whole life.  I could tell that right then, he’s made up his mind to always push for the best from himself and everybody around him.  From what I’m hearing from his bosses and coworkers, he kept that drive ‘til the very end.

Now, I’ve mentioned this Gangplank place a few times.  If you don’t know, it’s...what...a community...an economy...it’s really freaking intimidating to walk into that place.  I used to hang out down there.  I helped plan some events, I mentored, I never stopped feeling intimidated by these young geniuses that made that place a community.  I invited Ian down there (he was known as Stuart’s son), and he loved it, it was his element.  I think Katie Hurst, who ran that place for years, who is part of Gangplank’s DNA put it best: “It takes guts to walk into a room like GP, but Ian was a boss and gave so much back to the space.”  I quickly became known as Ian’s Dad.  Thank you to all the Gangplankers for bringing Ian into your family.

Now, I need to thank some people who haven’t been mentioned so far, and if I leave anybody out, please know that it’s only b/c my brain is fogged over:

• First and foremost, I need to thank his sister, Mira.  Even when he was such a giant pain in the ass, you loved him, you were his friend, and his sister.  He loved you so much.  I loved how you had each other’s backs.
• His grandparents, aunts and uncles.  You all loved him so much, and he knew it and loved you, too.  I’ll never forget Aunt Michele bonding with him so deeply, so immediately.  I’ll never forget her tears when she had to say goodbye after her first visit with baby Ian.
• He loved his cousins: insane Dylan and Trent, he looked up to Amelia, and to Leo and Josephine (wish he’d known better) (who were too young but we will still share him)
• Hamid and the gang at Axosoft: As a father, I was always proud of Ian, but Hamid was one who really took Ian under his wing and nurtured his talents.  I will always be grateful for that.
• Ben Hall for the friendship and mentorship, you helped mould him into the programmer he became
• Shon and Trevor and the amazing team at HiringSolved.  I can’t say enough.  You were family.
• The entire GP community.  Be Dangerous.
• His childhood and homseschool friends: Justin, Jon, Tallan, Dallon, Jacob/Mikal, Randy,Korey/Chauncey, Carl, Jake/Jonas -- he and Jake were planning a trip to Europe; Jake was saving money -- I’m sorry that won’t happen.  What a great friend you were to him.
• His new friends who we didn’t get to know yet, whom we know he deeply appreciated like Chris and Michael and other coworkers who were much more to him than coworkers

We last saw Ian on December 11th, his mother’s birthday.  We had a great evening, enjoying some Korean food, doing the Luminaria walk at Gilbert’s Riparian Preserve, opening presents at home.  We last spoke with Ian when he called to ask how old I was going to be on our shared birthday, December 18th.  He was planning for the future.  We didn’t see or sense any signs of what was coming.  Maybe we were blinded by love, I don’t know.  But the sudden end to this amazing man’s life is a tragedy beyond my ability to comprehend.  He made a decision that affects all of us in this room and so many more.  I don’t know if I’ll ever understand it or come to terms with it.  The one thing I do know, is that I looked up to Ian.  It’s something that all parents say, but I truly mean.  Ian was my hero.  I know...some of you were probably pretty sick of my bragging on him.

Ian, I love you, I miss you, if only you knew how great you were.

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