My Friend Karen

My friend Karen Morton passed away on July 23, 2015 after a four-month battle against cancer. You can hear her voice here.

I met Karen Morton in February 2002. The day I met her, I knew she was awesome. She told me the story that, as a consultant, she had been doing something that was unheard-of. She guaranteed her clients that if she couldn’t make things on their systems go at least X much faster on her very first day, then they wouldn’t have to pay. She was a Give First person, even in her business. That is really hard to do. After she told me this story, I asked the obvious question. She smiled her big smile and told me that her clients had always paid her—cheerfully.

It was an honor when Karen joined my company just a little while later. She was the best teammate ever, and she delighted every customer she ever met. The times I got to work with Karen were bright spots in my life, during many of the most difficult years of my career. For me, she was a continual source of knowledge, inspiration, and courage.

This next part is for Karen’s family and friends outside of work. You know that she was smart, and you know she was successful. What you may not realize is how successful she was. Your girl was famous all over the world. She was literally one of the top experts on Earth at making computing systems run faster. She used her brilliant gift for explaining things through stories to become one of the most interesting and fun presenters in the Oracle world to go watch, and her attendance numbers proved it. Thousands of people all over the world know the name, the voice, and the face of your friend, your daughter, your sister, your spouse, your mom.

Everyone loved Karen’s stories. She and I told stories and talked about stories, it seems like, all the time we were together. Stories about how Oracle works, stories about helping people, stories about her college basketball career, stories about our kids and their sports, ...

My favorite stories of all—and my family’s too—were the stories about her younger brother Ted. These stories always started out with some middle-of-the-night phone call that Karen would describe in her most somber voice, with the Tennessee accent turned on full-bore: “Kar’n: This is your brother, Theodore LeROY.” Ted was Karen’s brother Teddy Lee when he wasn’t in trouble, so of course he was always Theodore LeROY in her stories. Every story Karen told was funny and kind.

We all wanted to have more time with Karen than we got, but she touched and warmed the lives of literally thousands of people. Karen Morton used her half-century here on Earth with us as well as anyone I’ve ever met. She did it right.

God bless you, Karen. I love you.