In every thriving community, there are a handful of people you can point to as the ones who acted as the catalyst, the one who brought people together and helped them become something larger than the sum of its parts. In the Tampa Bay tech community, Vincent was a catalyst.
He was a co-founder of Tampa Devs, a non-profit organization that’s been bringing together programmers, technologists, and people who work in the technology field together since September 2021. They’ve held meetups, hackathons, socials, and all manner of get-togethers that have made the tech scene here in “The Other Bay Area” so much better than it was.
Vincent was a key part of the change in the local tech community, bringing his enthusiasm, energy, spirit, and curiosity to whatever project he took on. I had many long chats with him about what he wanted to do during the quieter moments at big tech gatherings.
Near the start of last year, Vince went off to see the country. He asked me about a few places I’d been to, and I told him about some favorite spots and even made some introductions to some friends in other cities. He’d occasionally send me a text with photos from wherever he was a the time — Dallas, Chicago, and a couple of wide-open spaces he didn’t identify — with the last message from him earlier this year.
I hadn’t heard from him in months, and that happens with friends who travel; also, life sometimes just gets in the way.
So it was a surprise to find out last week that Vincent had died. He was too damned young, and even if he’d lived to a ripe old age, he was so sweet a guy that it still would’ve been too soon.
Requiescat in pace, Vincent.
There will be a visitation for Vincent this Saturday, September 13, at Woodlawn Memorial Park & Funeral Home (400 Woodlawn Cemetery Road in Gotha) from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m..
The visitation will be followed by a funeral service from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the same location.
After that will be the committal service, which will run from 3:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the same location.