While students were preparing for the greetings they would give their friends after the long winter break, family, friends, and colleagues met in the Mancheski Executive Seminar Room to say goodbye to one of their own.

On January 20, a memorial was held for the late Edward Keegan, who passed away on December 15, at the age of 59.

He was not only the school’s director of systems, technology, and planning, but according to those who spoke at the memorial, he was much more.

“He was very, very advocating to the staff,” Richard Ferguson, vice-president/chief of information and technology office, said. “He thought he could make a contribution here.”

Keegan’s contributions ran the gamut. Those present at the memorial remembered his tireless efforts towards the university’s computer systems, but also his attempts to unite and educate others on the tech-staff.

Donald Buckley, a professor of biology, worked with Keegan through Learning Technology for the School of Health Sciences.

“He was always envisioning and planning how technology worked,” Buckley remembered.

To add a bit of humor to the bittersweet memorial, Buckley brought with him a short film of advertisements and movies that served as an analogy to the work Keegan did.

A fictitious ad showing men herding cats across the wild frontier served to show Keegan’s efforts to organize the ever growing and changing technological advancements, as well as rallying his colleagues.

Fred Tarca, director of administration and project management, brought a heart-wrenching slideshow of Keegan’s life, both familial and vocational.

Black and white photos of a young, smiling boy set the tone for the coming pictures of a happy man, surrounded by family or friends in a majority of the pictures.

“He was an intellectual architect,” Tarca said. “But he was also the type of person you could connect with.”

Members of Keegan’s family also spoke at the memorial, including his wife Roberta (Bonnie), who thanked the crowd for their friendship and support.

Mark Hawkins, Keegan’s son-in-law, offered several humorous, but heartfelt anecdotes to describe Keegan.

“He was a walking set of encyclopedias,” Hawkins said. “And he was a man who loved.”

Keegan had been working at the university for seven years. After graduating from Notre Dame High School, he studied at Southern Connecticut State University. He worked in the technological field at several institutions, including Yale University, before coming to Quinnipiac in 1997.