Jeanette Symons Packed a Lot Into a Tragically Short Life

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Generally a tragedy hits near dwelling, and typically it does so fairly actually.

Such was the tragedy that occurred on Friday, February 1, 2008, when a Cessna Quotation C-525 crashed into the woods close to West Gardiner, Maine, simply minutes after takeoff from Augusta State Airport.

The pilot was Jeanette Symons, 45; her sole passenger, her son, Balan, 10. Apparently wanting to return dwelling after every week attending ski camp at Sugarloaf, they took off in extraordinarily unfavorable climate situations. They did not make it.

For me, this aircraft crash hit near dwelling in a lot of methods. First, West Gardiner, Maine is only a few miles from my dwelling. She should have flown virtually over my home simply earlier than her aircraft went down, and one of many volunteer fireplace departments that responded to the accident was from my city of Manchester.

Second, the house they had been on their strategy to is Steamboat Springs, Colorado; I too have lived in Colorado. Third, Ms. Symons had been concerned in enterprise within the San Francisco Bay Space, founding corporations that helped form the Web because it exists at the moment; I’ve additionally lived within the Bay Space. Lastly, she was a stratospherically profitable entrepreneur of the sort I solely dream of being.

The climate on the time–an disagreeable mixture of freezing rain, sleet, and snow that almost all locals strove to keep away from driving in–was undoubtedly an element within the crash. All of the whys and hows have but to be sorted out, and the investigation is predicted to take six months to a 12 months.

Within the meantime, she leaves a 7-year-old daughter, Jennie, her mother and father, and two brothers. And naturally many admirers, of which I might depend myself one–although, to be trustworthy, I can not say for positive that I might ever heard of her earlier than this tragedy made big headlines on web page 1 of my each day newspaper.

Jeanette Symons was a “serial entrepreneur,” mentioned her good friend and co-worker Tim Donovan. She was named the wealthiest girl within the nation underneath age 40 by Fortune journal in 2001, reportedly having a internet value of $374 million that 12 months. She co-founded Zhone Applied sciences, a telecommunications start-up, and Ascend Communications Inc., a supplier of wide-area community options, which Lucent Applied sciences bought for over $20 billion in 1999. Her newest firm, Industrious Child, runs a networking web site for younger children.

“She needed to carry folks collectively and make good issues occur,” mentioned Donovan. “She was an superior particular person, a wonderful, hands-on mom and an incredible good friend. She shall be missed by all of us.”

The world wants a e-book about Jeanette Symons. Is anybody engaged on this?

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Source by Lisa J. Lehr