Guy was buried in a kibbutz, to give his two children a place to visit. It was about a half hour from the Tel-Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan. Guy's old army buddy Shai and his family gave those of us in the Washington delegation a ride, told us about the areas we were passing through, and gave us a last chance to prepare ourselves. The ceremony was informal but moving, like the person it honored. We were told that we were easily identifiable as his Washington friends, as we were the ones in suits. Afterwards, we went to his mother's house and shared stories and looked at his old photo albums. However, I don't think those stories are for this blog. Instead, I'm sharing below a note I wrote for a book we made up for Guy's children.
When I first started out, we were officemates. He outranked me - he always would - but that didn’t stop him from being great fun. He decorated our office with posters for Will Farrell movies; his spider plant added life to the office and its offspring still adds life to mine. As he moved up the ranks into his own offices the comedy got subtler. Posters were hidden behind doors and then rolled up. Instead, he had new images from his books and photos of his children on his desktop and his monitor. Guy’s maturation as a leader is not a new story, but while the veneer changed the core stayed true: a film aficionado, a fierce defender of his staff, a sometimes-glutton and yet fit biker, a loyal friend, and a treasured mentor.
Guy has many friends who can detail his good qualities, so I want to tell you instead why I think he made the choice to give us the privilege of spending those years here in Washington, D.C. My friend is one of those rare people who made a career out of his calling. His brilliance crossed disciplines: it let him understand supply, demand, and the policies that behind them together, and it led him to take on the knotty challenges of complexity. He loved the way the U.S. took on hard problems, from global positioning satellites to the internet. Living and working in our capital let him sit where diverse communities of experts gather, where big plans are undertaken, where he could meet and befriend those others only read, and where he could build his own team and gain increasing authority to pick his problems. Guy knew more than his fair share of frustrations - and believe me, we shared many a cynical conversation - but he found a way to chase his dreams.
I say all this as someone who often played skeptic to his enthusiast. However, I always respected the dedication and rigor he brought to his work and that he demanded from others. Guy took on unreasonable challenges and blazed paths for the rest of us. He was and he remains an anchor, one we will think on when we face problems that require both inspiration and perspiration, one who will remind us that even in the face of big problems we should still take care of our people. I will always be happy to share stories of Guy.