Offshoreonly.com - We have lost another good guy

Quote:

Originally Posted by ar15meister (Post 3741907)

I have known Sean for most of my life. Growing up as a kid my father used to take me over to Sean's shop while he worked on our Corvette collection. My grandfather and my father both also took their cars to Sean's father Henry to be repaired for many years.

When I became a teenager and got my driver's license and I got my first muslce car (1986 Corvette) it broke down a fair amount and I began to know Sean on my own apart from my visits with my father. A trip to his shop was usually more of a lesson about how things worked and why they broke than a typical trip to a mechanic. Sometimes I would even call it a 'lecture' because it seemed like he was actually giving me ****...which he was!

I grew very fond of Sean over the years and always had a bond with him (at least in my own mind) because we both grew up in family businesses and worked for our fathers. I also grew up right by his shop on Earlington Avenue in Toronto (Etobicoke).

I was about 23 years old I decided to buy an offshore boat as my first boat. My father told me to call Sean and see how to do it and what to buy. I remember our conversations very well. He told me not to buy the 28 Skater I wanted as my first boat because "you dont want to spend that much on your coffin".

So long story short I bought my boat and broke it alot and called Sean several times a week with random questions. Hung out with him in Key West a couple times at the Offshore races....I also at this point had moved into a much more senior position in our company and because of our unique business we often had people asking us who worked on our car collection. Sean began to work on many of my friends cars and my neighbors cars as well as my customer's cars. I also probably talked to him on a weekly basis and used to bring him customers cars often. He could fix anything. No BS. Anything. Ferrari's, old Dusenberg stuff...anything. Never BS'd you, didnt mince words, didnt sugarcoat stuff and was as honest as the day is long. As a mechanic he is 100% not replaceable. My father always told me that no matter what you do, be it sweep the shop or CEO of a big company, do it better than anyone. Sean was the best at his craft that I have ever seen.

Anyways, for the last few years I spoke with Sean on average about once a week for whatever reason. Usually we ended up chatting for 30 minutes or more and getting sidetracked. I truly valued his opinion on pretty much every topic including the ones not related to toys and machines. He taught me how to drive my boat, he came back to the ramp to pick me up in his boat so I wouldnt miss the rest of the run the first time I blew a motor in my boat and then helped get me drunk so I didnt have to think about the amount of money it would cost to fix and then for nothing at all he watched over the whole project for me with the guys at Active Engines. I used to call him when one of my cars broke down and he could usually tell me how to fix it over the phone. Not many mechanics get annoyed with you when you cant fix something simple by yourself and you force them to let you pay them to fix it. Sean did.

I called him from Vancouver last week; he didnt answer. Spoke to him a couple times the week before on a project we were working on together.

When I got the news Wednesday that Sean had passed from my father I didnt believe it. I was in Vancouver on business and changed my plans so I could attend his service today.

I will miss him as a guy I looked up to, a mechanic and I will always remember him in the shop with his little dog or how he made fun of me when I put a noisy exhaust on my pickup truck or called me an idiot for not running mufflers on my boat ("not quiet but at least legal!").

I actually didnt realize how much I truly liked him until I heard he had passed. I am upset that I will never see him again, on this Earth anyways.

My thoughts and wishes go out to his family.

Take it easy pal.

Adam Horodnyk.
TFX International

Beautiful.