Funeral services for Al Barsa Jr. will be held Wednesday, April 9, at 10 a.m. in the Church of the Resurrection in Rye, N.Y. A wake preceding the service and be held from 2 p.m.--4 p.m. and 7 p.m.--9 p.m. Tuesday, April 8, in the Graham Funeral Home in Rye.
Barsa, 55, died suddenly Thursday, April 3, while attending COMMON. A longtime member of the IBM midrange community, Barsa was found dead in his Nashville hotel room of apparent natural causes just as the annual user group meeting was concluding its weeklong round of educational sessions.
Nashville police said Barsa was found Thursday night in his room at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, site of the convention. Friends reported that Barsa failed to show up on his scheduled flight into Kennedy International Airport and concerned family members then contacted the hotel. Friends said that Barsa had suffered a fall prior to leaving on the trip to Nashville. The impact broke his glasses and caused him to suffer a black eye, they said, but there was no indication afterwards that he incurred any lasting injury.
Barsa, president of Barsa Consulting Group LLC and Barsa Systems Distribution, Inc., in Purchase, N.Y., was an IBM Business Partner and longtime member of COMMON and the Long Island Systems User Group (LISUG). He was a frequent speaker at both COMMON U.S. and COMMON Europe. He served as editor of the COMMON Technical Library and was a member of the Speaker Excellence Committee. He had been voted COMMON's best speaker and received the organization's highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award, as well as having been named to the AS/400 Insider Weekly's "10 Biggest AS/400 Market Influences" list five times, the only person ever to have been so honored.
Barsa was known as an enthusiastic business leader with an outgoing personality and sense of humor who loved the occasional joke. An expert on the System i and the CL language, he was considered a pioneer in the midrange field. He was both an outspoken critic and enthusiastic supporter of IBM and had close ties to many company executives. He was an early tester of both the System i operating system and new hardware, and bugs that he found in various releases of the operating system reportedly caused IBM to rework its code on more than one occasion. Among his favorite sayings were that "400 > (is greater than) 390" and "i comes before p, x, and z." He also believed to have coined the phrase, "It's the marketing, IBM!"
Longtime friend Curt Schwinck recalls one story Barsa would tell about an AS/400 he had installed for a client that ran so many years without maintenance that its owners literally forgot where it was located. The incident eventually was turned into an ad by IBM.
Skip Marchesani described Barsa as a "creative and brilliant" towering figure in the IBM midrange industry who would be sorely missed.
Trevor Perry, also a longtime friend of Barsa's, said, "Al was a force to be reckoned with in the AS/400 world. He was important because he could impact many people with his opinions, and for the most part, he was right. When he was wrong, or disagreed with your opinion, he stood up for his view. However, he would learn quickly, and he never held a grudge. He never stopped fighting for what he thought was right. Al will be missed."
Those at IBM who were often as not on the receiving end of Al's polemics regarding the System i learned to respect him despite any controversy in which he might be the focal point.
"I have the greatest respect for Al Barsa--as a father, a business owner, and as one of the most passionate and expressive members of the i community," said Mark Shearer, IBM vice president of Marketing and Offerings, Business Systems Division. "Since our first meeting, Al has been a trusted advisor, and I have learned that his community leadership has spanned decades. I'm going to miss Al's advice, but will work hard to honor him by continuing to be an active participant in the i community."
Born Oct. 7, 1952 in New York City, and raised in Rye, N.Y., Barsa graduated from The Cranwell School and received a B.S. in management and an MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He was an avid sailor and started a small sailboat dealership at the age of 14 that later was recognized as one of the top U.S. dealers in its class. He belonged to the Westchester Country Club and was a leader in the club's sailing program.
Barsa is survived by his wife of 32 years, Susan, and his two children, Albert and Christina, along with his mother and father, Gloria and Albert Barsa, and sister, Barbara Jamison.
The Graham Funeral Home is located at 1036 Boston Post Road, Rye, N.Y. 10580, 914-967-0129, and the Church of the Resurrection is at 910 Boston Post Road in Rye. Postings may be left and more information found at http://www.lisug.org/ and http://www.mr400.com/.
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