Thomas is wearing my pants in that photo.  What an honor!

Thomas is wearing my pants in that photo.  What an honor!

I thought I'd share a couple of stories. I met Thomas in 2005 while I was an undergrad at UBC Forestry. Nicholas Coops asked me to take part In field work with his new German PhD student in Campbell River, I was told to bring lunch and a pair of spikey boots! Then I met his PhD student, Thomas who was a forester like me and seemed like a decent person. Later that year I worked in Nicholas' lab alongside Thomas and then started in the lab as Nicholas' student. Thomas was busy setting up his field study, programming a device to scan forest canopy automatically. His dedication was obvious, he was often the first in the lab and last to leave. I remember him having a few technical difficulties such as the two computers that fried. I was also asked to help in Mackenzie to take down the long running field study. I turned up to find a very sheepish (but still smiling) Thomas and Dom to be told the spectrometer had fallen off the top of the tower and had developed a few rattles! During the time in the lab the rest of watched and experienced Thomas become an amazing scientist. He was the shining star, outdoing the rest of us. And even though he was busy he was happy to help us, he programmed a Visual Basic model and helped run a geometric optical model for my PhD. It seemed there was nothing he couldn't do and everything seemed effortless and easy when I watched him work, and he was so humble with it.

Not only was Thomas a great scientist, he was an amazing friend also. We shared multiple hikes and snowboarding adventures. I went through a divorce and Thomas sat with me over a couple of beers and talked with me. Later I hope I helped, we drove together from Vancouver to Baltimore when he got the job with NASA and we had five days travelling across the US. We spent the days talking and listening to the CDs I picked up in a gas station. When he dropped me off at the airport he gave me a big hug and we wished each other well. 

Since then we hadn't been in touch as much, both of us busy with our lives. I was happy to see that he met Yhasmin and the recent pictures on Facebook showed a very happy Dr Hilker as he spent time in Brazil. I was very happy for him. It was a big shock to find out recently that he is no longer with us and it will take some getting used to the fact that my friend is not here anymore. I will miss him terribly. My thoughts and sympathies go out to his family and to Yhasmin.

* die wussten, dass Twix mal Raider hieß  
* die mit Mamas Essen groß geworden sind  
* die Fahrrad ohne Helm gefahren sind
* die Kassetten mit Bleistiften aufgespult haben
* die am Telefon nie gefragt wurden „Wo bist Du gerade?“, weil es noch kein Handy gab
* die im Sommer barfuß, mit kurzer Hose und T-Shirt durch das Gras gelaufen sind ohne den ganzen Körper voller Zecken zu haben
* die Kekse und Brot mit fett Butter gegessen haben und trotzdem nicht dick wurden
* die ein Fahrrad ohne Gangschaltung hatten (maximal mit 3 Stufen!) und von ihrem Vater gelernt haben, wie man einen Platten selber flickt
* die wie Thomas innovative Problemlöser und Forscher mit Risikobereitschaft wurden
* Freunde - verwurzelt in der Kindheit, in unserer gemeinsamen Jugend - die nie vergessen sind

This was on a Parks Canada boat - they would bring us around to islands where had no ferry service to conduct field work. 2007

Note the locked door.  This was incredibly early in the morning, awaiting a ferry transfer in the Gulf Islands.  Even with a silly prank being played on him - that famous smile persisted!

It has been difficult for Klaus and I to share how we feel about losing such a good friend.  So many of you have shared such beautiful words.  We would like to share what we have learned from Thomas over the years about love, friendship, and just living life to the fullest.

1. Always introduce yourself to the new "German guy".  A friendship is sure to develop.

2. Never pass up an opportunity to walk your dog.

3. Walking your dog with your friend and their dog, priceless

4. Bigger fires are better

5. Free firewood is good

6.  BBQs are essential, even on a winter day in Corvallis

7. Fires can warm you up after a winter Corvallis BBQ

8. Have a NASA coffee cup ready when asked "Tasse Kaffee?"

9. Always watch out for guys on roller blades towing a dog

10. Reibeplaetzchen is always better when someone else makes them

11. Take a class on planting trees before you set out to help plant 500

12. Always bring a dog to work with you

13. Satelites are really, really cool

14. Friends and family are important

15. Smile a lot

16. Brazilian girls rock!

17. Take a hike

18. Brazilian beaches and the Amazon make for an "OK" workplace

19. Alemanha 0:1 Casamento

20. Weinstephaner Hefeweizen

Professor Andy Black and colleagues, joined a  large US/Canadian field experiment (BOREAS) and Canadian followon programs contributing tower measurements and analysis from this Douglas Fir Site in British Columbia.  Following our "wizard" meeting at UBC in February 2009, Thomas and I visited DF49, where I shot this photo in the instrument hut.  Andy and his team measured carbon, water and energy exchanges between the forested surface and atmosphere that were central to extending the techniques to space.

The development of methods to measure the exchange of carbon, water and energy between terrestrial vegetation and the atmosphere are critical to understanding how global forests, crops and rangelands will affect climate change. To develop such methods took an interdisciplinary team.  Around this table at UBC in February 2009 sits ecoystem modelers, plant physiologists, physicists, micrometeorologists, remote sensing specialists, programmers and Thomas Hilker, far right, who was a bit of all these. Our team led the development of such methods and successfully demonstrated them from both tower and satellite. Thomas was central to our efforts and will be sorely missed but his contributions will live on.