Tikkabik

I've learned today through Jim Dalrymple that Stan Flack, MacCentral's co-founder, passed away. Even though it had been some time since I had spoken with Stan, and even longer since I had seen him, I'm still very sad to hear the news.

My association with MacCentral started with a phone call from Stan. He and Dave Moser introduced themselves to me during a conversation that ultimately led to my sale of MacGaming.com to MacCentral, and their retention of me on a part-time basis to cover the Mac game beat.

At the time, I was working full-time in IT, managing the computer systems of a regional newspaper publisher. And I was desperately unhappy. Although I had the knowledge to do it, I didn't have the right temperament for IT, and the company I worked for wasn't very expertly managed, either. It didn't help that I was on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, had a crushing commute and was put in charge of managing computers at three different facilities spread over most of Cape Cod (and ultimately had to travel an hour north to Marshfield at least once a week too).

I had originally created my own Web page years before as a way of learning HTML, and over time it had turned into a complete Web site updated with daily news from the world of Mac gaming, reviews and other information. I poured a lot of effort into it, and it paid off: While I wasn't smart enough to monetize it with ad revenue, I was getting plenty of free games and game peripherals for my trouble, and more than that, a steady reader base and recognition in the Mac game business as a good news resource.

Stan, Dave Moser and Jim saw an opportunity to expand their coverage in an area they didn't have much of a foothold in, and I came on board part-time, in addition to my regular job.

At first I wrote game news specifically, but Stan and Jim pretty quickly recognized that I could be flexible enough to cover the regular Mac news of the day as well.

Interestingly, our relationship was entirely virtual, conducted over the phone and by e-mail. I met Stan and the rest of the MacCentral gang (minus Jim, who stayed back that time) when he invited me to come help MacCentral cover Macworld Expo in San Francisco.

Up to then I'd gone to the shows in a strictly civilian role. I took time off from my full-time job to prevent any conflict, and found the whole group to be a lot of fun to work with.

Stan in particular was very driven towards success -- he had a strong entrepreneurial streak, and he expected everyone to work as hard and to take the job seriously. While we may not have had a huge budget -- or really, any budget, we proved to everyone in the business that MacCentral could cover events like Macworld Expo better than even the best-heeled publications of the day. We were a force to be reckoned with, and I knew at that point that I'd found what I wanted to do with my life.

Eventually MacCentral was sold to Mac Publishing, the company that publishes Macworld, and on that day, I became a full-time Macworld employee. It happened at the right time, as less than two months before I had lost my IT job, part of a restructuring layoff the H.R. manager grimly referred to as "the Easter parade."

It was no surprise to me that Stan left Macworld not too long after it was sold. A person with such a strong, independent spirit would have found being part of a larger enterprise to be uncomfortable, especially after being his own boss for so long.

It wasn't too long afterwards that Stan resurfaced with his MacMinute.com Web site, plugging away in the same spirit with which he had started MacCentral.

One of the obvious downsides of telecommuting is "out of sight, out of mind." It's not easy to maintain a professional or personal relationship with someone who's a significant distance away from you unless both of you are both really committed to making such a relationship work.

Unfortunately, this proved to be true with Stan and me. He moved to Spain, got re-married, got divorced, moved to the U.K., then back to North America. I was busy with my Macworld job and my job as a father to three kids. I would, from time to time, drop him a line and say hello, but we never regained the daily phone calls and e-mails that had once dominated our relationship. We were, after all, professional rivals, so there was a distance that couldn't be easily navigated.

Regardless of the time and distance involved, I remember the time I had spent with Stan as very formative in my career as a Mac journalist and I'm grateful that he thought enough of my skills to pull me into the fold when he did. Along with many others whose orbits intersect with the Macintosh, Apple, and the myriad products that comprise this market, I mourn Stan's passing.