Nerds in Mourning: A friend, father, and founder leaves us

Today, the dev community in Minneapolis got word that the wreckage of the private plane piloted by the CEO of The Nerdery, Luke Bucklin, was found in the mountains east of Jackson Hole Wyoming. The plane had been missing for more than a week. Luke, and his three sons, were returning home from a family vacation. There were no survivors.

Most of you probably don't know of the organization called The Nerdery (http://www.nerdery.com). They're a group of 120 nerds in Minneapolis who are technological wizards - building mobile apps, web apps, legacy apps - any app you can imagine - they've probably built it. And you've probably also seen their work out there in the interwebs, too.

They're also the creators and sponsors of The Overnight Website Challenge (http://overnightwebsitechallenge.com/), where once a year 10-15 development teams of 10 people each gather together to donate 24 hours of their time to build websites for local non profits. That's well over 2500 hours of hard core hacking, donated for FREE, to groups in need, every year. This organization has done good - a lot of it.

Most of you didn't know Luke. Some of you did. Some of you might know someone who worked at or works at The Nerdery. Some of you might actually still work at The Nerdery. Either way, Luke was a guiding force that made, makes, and will continue to make The Nerdery an awesome place to work for people who love code, technology, and all things nerdy.

To quote my friend and former colleague @malbiniak: "He proved that you can build a successful business, based on passion, and maintain decency in the process. The more sincere the effort, the more genuine the return. Best. ROI. Lesson. Ever." That defines Luke, and the team at The Nerdery.

I'm a relative newbie here, and realize I run the risk of getting flamed for this post. There are other tragedies in the world, all deserving of our attention - not just this one. But the dev community in Minneapolis is mourning right now, and so are members of this (Hacker News) community, and I don't really give a shit if posting here pisses someone off.

If it's your thing, head over to http://blog.nerdery.com or http://www.lukeandginger.com/, or follow the conversation on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23LukeComeHome.

Also, please take a moment to read the thank you messages for the search and rescue teams involved in this effort: http://thanks.lukeandginger.com/