By Drew Gallatin, reproduced with permission.
I recently found out that Ken Smith (kensmith) recently passed away. Ken was on the RE team for many years, and was the lead RE for several releases around the FreeBSD 7 timeframe. I knew Ken when I was an undergrad at UB (State University of NY at Buffalo) Computer Science, where he was a sysadmin as well as an instructor. I really looked up to him, and he's at least partly responsible for my career path. In the late 80s / early 90s, I would often walk by his office late in the evenings where he was hacking away. Ken's interest in BSD predated FreeBSD. At one point, I recall he worked on a BSD port to DG Aviion workstations. He then co-taught what I fondly recall as my favorite undergrad course, where we had to bring up an OS from scratch on that hardware. That morphed into a class taught using FreeBSD. That happened well after I graduated (which was before FreeBSD was founded), so I never took it. He was always patient and kind to an ignorant undergrad and was a true inspiration. More recently, Ken was involved with "CS Explore Camp" (https://engineering.buffalo.edu/home/outreach/camps/csexplore.html), which I donate to, and I know Ken at least took pictures at the events. But I don't know the extent of his contributions. I feel like I always wanted to get to know him better and tell him the influence he had on my career, but now I'll never get that chance.
Here is a link to Ken's obituary: https://www.amigone.com/obituaries/Kenneth-N-Smith?obId=46680047
-- Drew Gallatin
In Memoriam: Kenneth N. Smith
I recently found out that Ken Smith (kensmith) recently passed away. Ken was on the RE team for many years, and was the lead RE for several releases around the FreeBSD 7 timeframe. I knew Ken when I was an undergrad at UB (State University of NY at Buffalo) Computer Science, where he was a sysadmin as well as an instructor. I really looked up to him, and he's at least partly responsible for my career path. In the late 80s / early 90s, I would often walk by his office late in the evenings where he was hacking away. Ken's interest in BSD predated FreeBSD. At one point, I recall he worked on a BSD port to DG Aviion workstations. He then co-taught what I fondly recall as my favorite undergrad course, where we had to bring up an OS from scratch on that hardware. That morphed into a class taught using FreeBSD. That happened well after I graduated (which was before FreeBSD was founded), so I never took it. He was always patient and kind to an ignorant undergrad and was a true inspiration. More recently, Ken was involved with "CS Explore Camp" (https://engineering.buffalo.edu/home/outreach/camps/csexplore.html), which I donate to, and I know Ken at least took pictures at the events. But I don't know the extent of his contributions. I feel like I always wanted to get to know him better and tell him the influence he had on my career, but now I'll never get that chance.
Here is a link to Ken's obituary: https://www.amigone.com/obituaries/Kenneth-N-Smith?obId=46680047
-- Drew Gallatin