By Ryan Martens and Rachel Weston Rowell
One of the many magical things about Jean Tabaka was that she connected so deeply with people, even if only meeting them for a short time. Many of us meet new people and ask the simple questions: What do you do? Where do you live? What do you like? Jean never favored small talk; she always pushed right to the heart of the matter, whatever it was.
She was deeply empathetic which allowed her to intuit the needs and wishes of those around her. She cared about all of us enough to ask us the right questions to help deepen our understanding of ourselves. And if she could, she would help us see those wishes granted and needs met. She gave her time, her wisdom, and her heart to allow each of us who knew her (and many whom she never met) to become better at what we do and how we do it. She was our teacher, our mentor, our guide. It’s so hard to imagine that we don’t have her ongoing wisdom to guide us through these future days. She will be missed.
If you are one of the many whose life was touched in some way by Jean’s wisdom, generosity, and love, here’s an opportunity to pay it forward.
Taking a page from Jean’s notebook, we want to honor her gifts by enhancing learning opportunities in our community for those with less opportunity. We are raising money to make a significant gift in Jean’s name to a program or scholarship that will carry on Jean’s lifelong love of learning and mentoring.
The Rally for Impact Foundation will match every dollar donated to the Jean Tabaka Memorial Fund. Jean was one of many Rallyers to donate personally to the Rally for Impact Foundation, now we are going to leverage that fund for a great woman engineer and coach
As many Rallyers and CA team members came together in Boulder to share our grief and memories for Jean, Tim wrote clearly and eloquently from his boat in the South Pacific about Jean’s entrance and impact at Rally. If you read the tweets to @jeantabaka or the long list of comments on Tim’s post, it is clear that Jean touched employees, customers, and the agile community worldwide. Jean’s foundational roles at Rally in Services and the Office of the CTO, had her front and center as coach, agile fellow, and ambassador. She was the primary face of Rally and, as our employees know, she was the mother of Rally.
There are four words that come up in every discussion about Jean; Empathy, Learning, Collaboration, and Coach. Jean was the go-to-person for understanding the “mood” of the office. Her door was always open and she was always excited to share about her latest customer trip, conference, or blog post. Mostly, she was an active listener and supporter for all. Jean taught us to be agile as a company and in our lives. We lost a mentor, a friend, and a company co-worker. We’re all better for having worked closely with Jean, and now she lives on in us.
Photos: Ryan, Jean, and Tim 2013 and Rachel and Jean in 2009
