In Memory of Wayne Suzuki
We at RAFT are sad to share that a long time hero of the RAFT community, Wayne Suzuki, has passed away.
Since the start of RAFT, Wayne has been an integral part of the organization over the course of our 30 year history.
Wayne had a true passion for educators. After working at IBM for 30 years he retired and then volunteered to help his wife, Jean, in her classroom. After Jean retired from teaching, they both started volunteering at RAFT to continue to support educators and their students.
While volunteering at RAFT, Wayne would do whatever was needed at the time with such exceptional quality. At first he was focused on refurbishing the hundreds of computers donated from Silicon Valley companies. The logistics of space for the unwieldy hardware, and addressing the concerns for software licensing and disc drive security by the donor companies could be a complicated process. Wayne set the standard, and RAFT earned the trust of Silicon Valley corporations. He received high praise from these companies on RAFT’s refurbishing processes and procedures, and on the quality of the refurbished computers passing through our program to the educators.
Wayne always had RAFT’s best interests at heart and would do what was needed to support the organization. This would include purchasing supplies for RAFT without mentioning it nor wanting compensation, to becoming an expert on fixing our numerous Ellison machines that are used constantly by our educators. This led him to becoming recognized by the Ellison company as being one of the most competent “fixers” of their products.
RAFT founder, Mary Simon, summarized Wayne’s dedication to RAFT as the following: “Wayne brought a disciplined approach to our then scrappy young nonprofit and, with great patience for what often must have seemed to (him) like an unconventional way to run a business, he stayed. Three, four, five, or even six days a week. Every week. Year after year. (He) came quietly, and often was the last to leave. Wayne took RAFT under his wing and into his heart”.
Wayne is survived by his wife, Jean Suzuki, and the RAFT community is very grateful for their tireless support over the years. The RAFT community can’t express the impact Wayne has had on our organization. Thank you Wayne for all you have done. You will be missed.
