Sad news - Henry Heffernan has died

[Nancy Anthracite]

I only met Henry a few times and exchanged emails with him, as well, but he was clearly one of those forces of nature sort of people and such a delight. He seemed to know how politics worked in Washington and tried to help me change things. I am afaid I was not a very good student.

 

He came to a few VistA Community Meetings but usually stayed only briefly. I hope those of you who knew him best will enlarge upon what I have said.

 

 

 

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Nancy Anthracite

 

[Tom Munnecke]

Yes, a force of nature. He was such a supportive and encouraging
presence to me, all the way back to 1975 when I presented my first
paper on MUMPS. Always there, but in the background. I don't think
of him particularly as a mentor, but more of a "patient presence" who
would show up at critical times.

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[Wolfgang Giere]

Tom, do you know of any written document about Henry Heffernans role in victory of the underground railroad?

Wolfgang


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Betreff: Re: [Hardhats] Sad news - Henry Heffernan has died
Datum: 2022-01-16T20:14:16+0100
Von: "Tom Munnecke" <munn...@gmail.com>
An: "hardhats" <hard...@googlegroups.com>

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[r...@rcresearch.us]

How sad. He was a very interesting force of nature. He was an interesting
personality. He got me to come to Washington to attend so business meeting
to represent MUMPS. He was an amazing Jesuit Minister, an author of a
column in Computer World if memory serves. He loved to write stories about
house fires even if he had to start them. God bless the rebels who keep the
issues stirred up. He will definitely be missed.

A light has gone out in the world, but he helped ignite such
light in others.
Let us hope that this light shines far and wide. God bless Henry Heffernan
and his memory. Rest in peace, Henry, you were a force for good and
did well.

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[Tom Munnecke]

Here is video I recorded of him in 2008...
https://archive.org/details/Munnecke-HenryHeffernan754 Hopefully, I
can find the full resolution copy sometime.

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[Wolfgang Giere]

Thanks, Tom, I could not see but hear him tell the story of the Mumps and VA-development -- in spite of knowing most of it it was emotional to hear Henry.

Wolfgang


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Betreff: Re: [Hardhats] Sad news - Henry Heffernan has died

Datum: 2022-01-17T07:09:50+0100

Von: "Tom Munnecke" <munn...@gmail.com>
An: "hardhats" <hard...@googlegroups.com>

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hardhats/CAK%2B05D4ZFJXxpds6id207t93S_6QDh5n9rPQzPtNOpL9TwphwQ%40mail.gmail.com.


[Nancy Anthracite]

Tom,this is fascinating. History repeats itself, I can see very clearly, and it appears nobody, especially in government, learns from it when it comes to medical software at least. Or is it that politics will never change? The lack of high resolution does not diminish its impact.

 

How was Henry Heffernan in a position to know all of this? It does not seem like something a Jesuit priest would be involved in.

 

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Nancy Anthracite

[Nancy Anthracite]

Wolfgang, I found that if you click over the download button for the first item on the list, it opens up this link and you can see the video and I downloaded it as well using a wget command with this link.

 

https://ia802703.us.archive.org/18/items/Munnecke-HenryHeffernan754/Munnecke-HenryHeffernan754_512kb.mp4

 

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Nancy Anthracite

[Augie Turano]

I knew Henry since the earliest days of DHCP/VistA.  Henry had a keen interest in computing in the VA and did a lot of work to promote it in Washington but also to the general public.  He used to write articles for the Federal Computer Week on the work that we were doing and how fast implementation of the DHCP (DeCentralized Hospital Computer System) was going and improvements it was making for Veterans Healthcare.   He lived on I street in DC, a stones throw away from congress, where he would frequently visit and "lobby" for funding for the VA IT.   He was such a pleasant yet serious guy.  When I was at Microsoft I went to NIH quite frequently and would meet up with Henry to chat or have lunch.   He would come to the NIH BCIG (Biomedical Computer Interest Group) and listen very intently offering thoughts and ideas about the various topics.

Henry would frequently visit the Washington DC VA where we had a VDC (Verification and Development Centers) the IT field offices before we called them that.  He would visit Dan Maloney the VDC director at the time and I was working there with Milt Roberson, Javier Albarran, and many others where we set up FORUM, wrote code, taught Mumps and did a lot of fun things.  Henry frequently did not wear his clerical collar but in its place a dress tie,  he carried around a brief case with a library of technical papers.  I remember once walking into Dan Maloney's office where he and Henry were chatting and Henry handed me a paper on the MACH operating system, a new OS being developed at CMU.  He was that kind of guy, he did whatever he could to further promote the VA work and try to stimulate ideas.  On that visit I remember asking him (I didn't know he was a priest at the time) who he worked for.  Without a second delay he raised his arms to the ceiling and said I work for the Almighty.    There was an energy then, working on VA coding, implementation and architecture, and an excitement that was never repeated even after 30 years in the VA, those days were truly remarkable, fun and important.

Henry was very instrumental in getting important people to the SCAMC meeting that really started the ball rolling with going from passing around brown paper bags with magnetic tapes to actually being legitimate VA IT.  He has nieces and nephews in Pittsburgh and would always call when he was headed here so we could meet and have lunch or talk usually around Thanksgiving.  Henry did contribute some early material on DHCP/VistA as did I to Dr. Valerie Harvey at Robert Morris University who was trying to archive and chronicle some of the early Mumps work.  Henry fell ill I think in the summer, and was in a retired priest's house in Philadelphia. I received a Merry Christmas email from him right before the holiday and promised to send him some papers about the current work going on now in VA.  Henry was working on a religious book that probably was not completed in his final months.   If there was a HardHat Hall of Fame - Henry would be a prominent figure on the wall.  I will miss him.

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[Maury]

Here's a link to his obit in the Washington Post:

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/washingtonpost/name/henry-heffernan-obituary?id=32236577

[George Timson]

On Thursday, January 20, 2022 at 3:19:27 PM UTC-7 Maury wrote:

Here's a link to his obit in the Washington Post:

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/washingtonpost/name/henry-heffernan-obituary?id=32236577

No mention of Henry's being Chairman of the Mumps Users Group.   He's actually the third former Chairman to die is a 12-month period, preceded by Richard Walters and Richard Davis.   "The paths of glory lead but to the Grave."  :-(

--George Timson