Prayers for Flubaroo Joe

[Dave Abouav]

If you’ve ever written to the Flubaroo user forum for support over the past decade, you’ve likely had your question answered by a retired gentleman named Joe Schmidt (glua...@gmail.com). I’ve just learned that Joe is in his final hours, now at the hospital surrounded by family. Below I’ve included  tribute to him that I wrote last year internally at Google. I hope you’ll read it and reflect on someone who gave so much of themselves to help others, and say a prayer for him if you’re so inclined. Feel free to reply here as well and I’ll pass any well wishes on to his family.

Best,

Dave (author of Flubaroo)

~~~~~

In a small town in Northern Kentucky lives a Google Workspace guru you've never heard of. He works exclusively from his living room chair, where he helps people around the world to use tools like Google Forms and Sheets, primarily to help with their educational and non-profit endeavours. He's Joe Schmidt, a retired I.T. professional in his late 70s who spends his days doing this because he enjoys helping people, staying current on technology, and also because "it beats gardening".

I first met Joe back in 2014. I kept seeing his name pop-up in the help forum for a Google Sheets tool I had created called Flubaroo, which helped teachers with grading. Often before I had a chance to reply to questions, this mysterious Joe character would send an answer first, or offer to meet with the teacher over video to help them face-to-face. I soon learned it wasn't just users of my tool which Joe was helping. He was also a primary contributor in the help forums for other popular Google Sheets Add-ons such as Autocrat, the fourth most installed Workspace Add-on with 83M installs globally. After meeting him, I learned that Joe was basically doing this full-time, helping people from across the globe with their questions and issues. He just loves helping people, especially those that are using Google's tools to do good for the world. At this point he has supported many thousands of people, helping them use Google Workspace to succeed to maximize the impact these tools could have in their classrooms and non-profits. A deeply spiritual person, Joe often says that God has been good to him, and must be keeping him around to keep doing this for a reason.

Here’s a bit more about Joe, in his own words:

“I really enjoy helping teachers. From the newest user of Flubaroo to the teacher who wants to be more adventurous. I enjoy a good puzzle but please ask for help before you have committed to something that you don't know how to do in Flubaroo.

I am very happy that Dave lets me make suggestions to improve Flubaroo. We have become a team connected by the desire to help teachers.

I have met some wonderful people via email, a chat window, or a Hangout. The more I can see of your problem, the quicker we can find a solution.

I'm not old but I started working with IBM cards in 1964. I'm thankful that my wife of more than 50 years lets me enjoy this hobby.”

Since we first met, Joe I have met monthly to chat about user issues and new Flubaroo features, but also just to catch-up and chat about our lives. It's amazing to see the impact he's had, and I thought it was about time to share and celebrate it with others at Google too.

[Dave Abouav]

For those who saw my original posting, I just wanted to share that Joe passed not long after I made my last post. 

If you'd like to honor Joe for any help he gave you and other teachers over the years, his family posted this link where you can plant a memorial trees in honor of him and his wife.