In Memory of David Grega
Today we mourn the loss of a family member, David Grega. David wore many hats at cPanel including Account Management, Feature Management for partners and advocate for the hosting industry. David has been instrumental in launching too many projects to list in a single blog post, and he will be deeply missed within our community.
My experiences with David resulted in me being a better person and being a better leader at cPanel. David often shared his opinion, but what was unique about his disposition was his ability to be part of any solution that made cPanel a better place to work, a better product or helped his fellow employee.
David was a teacher at heart and spread his knowledge freely. When I first met David, I considered him slightly introverted but in knowing that cPanel needed teachers, he jumped at the opportunity. David was technical and he would have succeeded in any position at cPanel, but chose the path of Technical Product Specialist. He had a wonderful sense of humor. Each week David wanted to communicate with me the items he was working on and started sending me TPS reports. It took me a few weeks to get the joke (from Office Space), but each week he sent me a TPS report and it made me chuckle many times.
David Grega was also very generous. He spent many weeks in our learning rooms teaching fellow employees about web hosting, competition, public speaking, cPanel & WHM and many more topics. He filled the room with cPanel employees wishing to gain wisdom from his years of experience. David did the same with customers and launched initiatives that included cPanel Certification, cPanel Webinars, and a video site to archive his and others teachings.
Most importantly, David left a mark on the web hosting industry. He helped customers, he had passion, and he went out of his way to make sure our customers were taken care of. He was their advocate, and to many of our customers, David was cPanel. David did not do this because it was a job duty, he did it because he loved it, empathized with customers, and had a true passion for helping others. He shaped features of the product, helped partners launch web-hosting companies and taught the world about being better at hosting.
He fell in love with a task management package called Remember The Milk. Juggling many projects and tasks, he never wanted to forget anything. His task list, calendar, and list of daily accomplishments amazed me.
I have countless memories of debates about our product and many times when we were stuck on a problem or could not come up with a resolution, we would unanimously say, “Let’s go ask David.” In asking David, he would tell his opinion, facts about customers, things to consider or just tell us the whole thing sucked. He did it without hesitation. He did it to make thing better.
David Grega touched the lives of everyone that worked with him at cPanel and his values have shaped us into the company we are today. We miss him deeply and the webinars, lunches, impromptu opinions (not to mention the TPS reports) will never be quite the same without him.
David leaves behind a girlfriend and newborn child he dearly loved. We’ve setup a memorial site at http://www.gofundme.com/davidgrega and invite you to leave a comment, or make a contribution to help support his loved ones with expenses and make sure they are well taken care.