© Greenpeace/Kate Davison
If you've visited a Greenpeace website, or have received an email from a Greenpeace email address, you have a man called Sjoerd Jongens to thank for laying the foundations. He built the networks connecting Greenpeace offices and people, as well as helping Greenpeace to win campaigns in Antarctica and around the world.
Sjeord died in a bicycle accident on his way to work at Greenpeace International in Amsterdam last week. Brian pays tribute on Making Waves:
Sjoerd foresaw that a new thing called 'the internet' might be something we'd want to use in future, and he started a gopher, WAIS, and FTP server back in the late 80s. He registered the domain www.greenpeace.org and put our first website up in 1992, serving as the organisation's first webmaster...
He was possibly the grumpiest support person in the history of IT support. And yet he was beloved by everyone who caught a glimpse of the heart behind the gruffness. His managers, myself among them, quickly learned to keep him close to the computers, far from the staff. Mike Townsley once approached him to say he was having trouble with his laptop. "No, Mike. I suspect we'll find that your laptop is actually having trouble with you," was the unironic response.
But those who saw him at sea or in Antarctica saw a different Sjoerd...
Read Brian's tribute on Making Waves.
