EDC Chair Honors Departed Friend, Colleague Bruce Alessie

Editor's note: Neil Sherman, the chairman of the town's Economic Development Commission (EDC) read the following at the commission's meeting Tuesday night.

By Neil Sherman

Over the past six days since , and my own hard grappling with personal loss, and my deep sympathy for his family's loss, and my understanding of the enormous blow his loss would mean to Stratford, I have marveled at the community's outpouring of love, remembrance and celebration of Bruce and his life.

Everywhere I turned, people talked of their personal interaction with him, at their laughter while being with him, at their awe in his ability to achieve, and at their admiration for his remarkable shoulder-to shoulder-concept of human relationships.

I don't think I have ever met a person like Bruce Alessie and I had grown to love him and to feel that our partnership for economic development for the town of Stratford could create great things for this community.

None of it was easy.

The mayor and Bruce tackled big things and very hard things and they didn't and wouldn't let go. We all demand success and quick success. But John Harkins and Bruce Alessie knew that the Army Engine Plant or Dogstar Studios are big projects, not easy projects and despite frustration, constant frustration, setback after setback, both of them had the vision and the tenacity to hold on, to fight, every day, to get those big projects done whatever the cost. That's to be admired. It's still to be admired.

Bruce was often very funny about that frustration. He would call me up and ask me to come over and he would vent, and by the end of the vent I was bent over in laughter. It was his way of making an insane world sane.

I was often sworn to secrecy, and I never said a word, and Bruce knew that about me. And I never turned him down. When he asked me to raise money for the mayor's golf tournament or called me Rabbi Sherman so I'd light the menorah this last Chanukah, I could never say no to him. And so I raised the money, or lit the Menorah as Rabbi Sherman, or even lit the Christmas tree.

I was in the Chamber of Commerce business for many years, and one of the skills you were praised for in that business was volunteer facilitation -- the ability to make a volunteer who only gave you an hour or two of leadership effort a week look good when they took on a leadership role in front of a crowd or ran a meeting. Bruce was a genius at it; he knew I knew it. He made me look good at these meetings -- he had knowledge and understanding and history. Priceless beyond words.

I'm still searching for something that this commission should do to honor Bruce. It's not that it has to be big, it just has to be honest and it has to be Bruce. I'll hit upon it and come back to you; I've asked the mayor for some help and plan to discuss it with him further.  

But one of the things that I would like to do, with your permission is I would like to dedicate to Bruce's memory. And I would also like to dedicate this year's Economic Development Commission's efforts to his memory. I don't know if those efforts will be up to his standards, but we can try.

I shall stagger for some time without Bruce and then I will begin to understand the world through him and be thrilled that I had the great opportunity to know him and continue to know him.