Randy Weeks passed away on Sunday, September 27, 2020. It’s been almost five years since I originally jotted down my thoughts in a journal. I intended to share them here, but I could never quite figure out what to say.
What keeps running through my mind are the early days. The formative years when I first encountered his unique combination of dreaming, courage, creativity, and persistence.
In 1995, Randy found my “Cincinnati People and Business Listings” on the web, a directory I was running from my first Internet dial-up account at “iac.net/~bradmc”. At the time, he was working on his own early web projects, including a blog-style site called the “Weirdly Wired Web” journal. He started reaching out to me, casually calling me at work at Fidelity Investments while my department was in a transitional location at Turfway Park in Northern Kentucky.
Randy was still working at GE Aircraft Engines but had been developing ideas for getting local businesses on the web. He also had a vision for hosting my People and Business Listings at a new domain we would set up called cincy.com. Honestly, I didn’t take him seriously at first. I assumed he was just another big talker. But Randy was persistent, and we’d end up talking on the phone for hours while I paced around my cubicle. Slowly, I realized he wasn’t just dreaming. He was laying the groundwork for something real.
Toward the end of 1995, my department at Fidelity had moved to its permanent location in Covington, Kentucky. Around the same time, Randy asked me the question that would change my entire direction: “How much money would it take for you to leave Fidelity and work on these ideas full time?” He had already started his own business using the name PCLogic but decided to partner with one of his friends and launch NetCrafters instead. I told him I’d need at least as much as I was making at Fidelity. It wasn’t that much really, but I figured that would be the end of it. To my surprise, Randy called back and said, “That works.” It was a moment of disbelief. I told him I needed to talk it over with my wife. Ever supportive, she said she thought I should go for it.
The kicker? I’d never even met Randy in person at this point. But I took the leap. We would start on the first business day of January 1996.
On my last day at Fidelity, during that quiet week between Christmas and New Year’s, a gentle snowfall covered the city. Cincinnati looked magical as I crossed the Brent Spence Bridge out of Covington. I headed downtown to the Atrium for a NetCrafters kickoff party and finally met Randy, his business partner, and a group of their friends.
We started working out of a spacious house, high in Mount Adams, a neighborhood as quirky and creative as Randy himself. Within a year, we moved into an office in Longworth Hall, a historic building near downtown that gave our growing crew a sense of permanence and possibility. We must’ve had four or five other employees by this point.
Randy eventually bought out his partner and went on to 25 years of interesting projects and business relationships. He quickly built trust with Proctor & Gamble, Jacor, WEBN 102.7, 55KRC, the Cincinnati Post, Aglamesis Brothers, Hills Properties, Belcan Recruiting, United Grinding, The Morris Group, and so many more.
One early project Randy put together with a technical executive at P&G was a chat system for their CEO to use during a live Q&A session with newly onboarded employees. I’d created a web-based chat system that mimicked IRC (Internet Relay Chat) using HTML’s meta refresh tag. It all felt very precarious and I couldn’t believe we were actually going to do it. During the live event, we were in a room at P&G World Headquarters that resembled NASA Launch Control. John Pepper, P&G’s CEO at the time, was in another location fielding questions from international recruits while we watched over the site and servers with P&G’s IT team. The event went off without a hitch. Not bad for 1997.
Randy was a dreamer, but more importantly, he made things happen. When he had a big idea, he pursued it patiently yet persistently. And he was a calming presence. I remember watching him in meetings with customers. His deliberate pace and earnestness put everyone at ease.
Every once in a while, you meet someone who is fundamentally intelligent and creative enough to learn or do anything that might capture their interest, and Randy was one of those people.
Although he and I had some long and deep philosophical conversations over the years, mine is primarily a business perspective of Randy. I can only imagine how special the relationships he had with his wife Jane, his daughters, and extended family were. Randy will be missed, but his impact lives on in the countless lives he touched. NetCrafters continues on with Jane, and as I continue the privilege of working with her, his presence remains evident in everything we do.
More…
- Randy was also a musician and writer. His original songs and thoughtful words are at weeks.org.
- Reclaiming Ordinary – Writing by Randy Weeks and Jane Pugliano
- Randall Brian Weeks Obituary
