Fantastic, what a run he had! Ton is obviously an epic leader who also happens to be a great guy!

I had the absolute fortune to work in a bigger project in which the Blender Foundation was a partner back in the early 2000s, and got to meet him on many occasions. We rotated our project-wide meetings, and held one in Amsterdam when the Blender Conference was up, and I got absolutely hooked on both Amsterdam and the Blender community.

I kept going to the Conference many times thereafter, even though I was never neither a developer or a user of Blender. It's just such a fantastic community, it was great to just hang out and soak up some happy vibes, and of course seeing and hearing Ton's voice (both literally and in the abstract as a leader) throughout it all.

To this day our kitchen wall has a huge photo poster from Amsterdam front and center, and both kids have heard so many stories of what a great town that is. :)