Like many others my first experience with Dan was when I had only been with IDX about 6 months. The project I had been assigned was much more complex than anticipated and was under an aggressive timeline. Unlike others, I did not have to call him at 2 in morning. Instead, I found him standing at my desk asking where my code was located so that he could help me get things back on track. Nothing like an impromptu code review by the guy who wrote the product and who was known for speaking his mind. For the next 5 days Dan not only helped troubleshoot the client’s issues but pointed out the fasted and easiest way to address things.He did not take over the project or point out what I had done wrong but just systematically helped move the project forward and get the client live. I learned a lot from him those 5 days and the years to come. Dan’s passion for his work and how he carried himself forward with all the challenges he faced is inspirational.I will greatly miss his guidance, witty comments and most importantly his friendship.

I am sad to hear the news of Dan's passing.

i was hired at IDX in 1997 in GPMS tech support. I have held on to this memory of Dan, as it meant a lot to me ....

one night when i was on-call, i received an issue from perhaps our largest customer.  i can't recall the timing, but it was rather early in my career.  for the life of me, i could not get the app started.  after fighting with it for a while, i knew something was "wrong".  i made a phone call, and they said (paraphrased):
Them:  I dunno.  You're gonna have to call the Dev resource on call.
Me:      great (it was about 2am).  who's that?
Them:  Dan Moran
Me:      [gulp]  (i knew who Dan was and was familiar with his no-nonsense reputation.)

so, i had to call Dan in the middle of the night never having met him.  after i explained a bit of what i was seeing, we decided to go into the office.  as it turns out, we discovered the large file enablement issue with AIX/GPMS.  in short, the customer's data files were too large for the operating system.  we worked until morning reconfiguring the operating system while he refactored the app to support it.

it was a long time ago, and i don't recall all the details.  but, i do remember how Dan treated me.  I was a 20-something-year-old kid fresh(ish) to the company, but Dan was gracious and quickly put me at ease (he knew i was stressed about having to call him and get him into the office).  He couldn't have been more kind and professional in those moments, and i quickly realized two things:
1) the old adage of "don't judge a book by its cover" was definitely true
2) this was a guy i wanted on my (proverbial) team

i respected the heck out of him.

now, i am gonna have to go see if i can find some Tab cola (remember?), so that i can have one in remembrance of Dan.

my condolences to family and friends.

-todd

This is a great memory from David Clow entered by Sharon Clow.

My brother in lawDan spent countless hours helping us at our apartment on Main Street Essex and house on Browns River fixing our computer issues.

Especially remember the very memorable and interesting trip we took with Ceal and Dan to see the submarine museum in CT.  

I also knew Dan through my time at IDX. In my early years I only knew him by legend as this mysterious and intimidating figure who would show up at my desk to set me straight if I did something irresponsible or stupid. I still remember the first time I met him in person at a Christmas event and thinking to myself, “he seems pretty nice and not scary at all”.

Years later I was lucky enough to get to know him even better when he was brought in as a “hired gun” to solve a two-year long escalation with a particularly difficult customer.  While working through the escalation I came to appreciate his sharp wit during and after phone calls with some of his favorite consultants who were unintentionally trying to lead us off the path to solving the problem.  Through my time working with him I got to know the most genuine and caring person you’ll ever meet.

He once told me, “You know Fitz, you probably think I come across as negative, but I’ve been a programmer for decades and I’m wired to think about how things won’t work.”  I let him know how much we all appreciated that approach and wished all developers were so conscientious.  That is who Dan was, an intelligent caring man with strong character, values, and the courage to tell you what he thought no matter who you were.

You’ll be missed Dan!

Like many people, I knew Dan from the IDX days.  

As others have said, Dan spoke his mind and didn't suffer fools.  He was also not thrilled with members of IDX's sales team, which I joined back in 1991.  I still remember getting scolded by Dan when I explained that we (my manager and I) had committed IDX to building an enhancement to GPMS in order to close a deal.  It was not a pleasant!   

Many years later, when I was the GM of the business, I was still anxious when I needed to talk with Dan about enhancing the product in order to get a new deal.   At least by then, I had learned to never surprise him with a commitment.   These situations came up about once a year.  And they followed a pattern.  First, Dan would tell me what a stupid idea the enhancement was and how it was likely impossible to build.   I would then spend about 30 minutes of seemingly futile attempts to change his mind, after which he would grudgingly say he would think about it.  

Then two days later, he would walk into my my office (without any appointment and with Mark in tow) and explain a very elegant way in which he would build this 'stupid' enhancements, but modify it in a way that would benefit all of our customers.  His solutions were always spot on. 

Because in the end, Dan always did the right thing for IDX and its customers.  He took great pride in his work and never let anyone down. 

I became friends with Dan, on my 2nd day of work in 1987.New to the company and had no knowledge of GMPS, I was sent to customer ELL in Ellenville NY to re-format a RT-PC and reload GPMS.

Mike Gahagen my manager gave me a phone # and said just call if you run into trouble, after many hours and unsuccessful attempts I called and got “Who the hell are you and Why (and a few other choice words) are you calling me at 3:00am”.I explained the situation and Dan immediately turns into customer support mode.

What time does their office open? Explain the steps you have taken? What on the screen now that your stuck at? Dan walked me thru the xzzinit issue (only an issue because I had no idea what it was!!!) from there verified A-R was in balance and system was up before ELL opened the office in the morning. Dan’s comment to me was well at least you tried, and to stop by to see him when I get back to the office to go over the process and to make sure I had a understanding of what is needed as to not put customers at risk in the future.

As the years went by and the company changed hands and key personal, I now have a much better understanding and deep appreciation of Dan’s tireless effort of the GPMS product and vision for healthcare. The one thing that never changed was the impact he had on others, and relentless effort to provide the best possible customer experience for the thousands of users of GPMS.

I would stop by Dan’s home in Charlotte every once and a while on my way home to NY from work, our conversations would sometimes turn to catching him up on the IDX folks and how GEHC is (explicit) things up. Now on the surface it would be easy to view it as Dan has a chip on this shoulder because he wrote most the programs.

As I learned through more conversation with the benefit of time and how it played out in real life, that was not the case. As I heard many times from Dan in person and in meetings that GMPS needs a re-write to complete in the marketplace. Early on when GEHC took over Dan, Mark and Fred were sent over to a temporary office across the street from IDX to re-write GPMS using Linux. The early beta version was proposed to GEHC but unfortunately these folks did not have the experience and vision to adequately evaluate products and they pulled the plug on the GPMS re-write, and choose an inferior product from another acquired company to provide resources to.

Would this be the end of GPMS? The years following it seemed GEHC would do anything in its power to remove resources from GPMS and target the customer base to move to a different product. But the IDX GPMS teams took that as a challenge and made the best with what cards were dealt.

When the company moved a lot of the programming to India, I asked Dan how that was going? He noted that the time zone and language barrier is a challenge but that he is working on it, he pointed out some positive things that the team is set up for and some terrible things “they can take the scrum team process and stick it!) Dan challenged himself to learn whatever he could from the team, teach the team all for the better good our customers still using GPMS, respect on both sides was earned!

Would this be the end of GPMS? Well at some point it may but as of now 40+ years later is still going and Dan is a major reason for that. His relentless effort, obsession over customer success, error free code, he has set by example the highest bar for all to follow – and because many did GPMS is that “Once in a Generation” product.

As many know Dan was a straight shooter and to the point as he didn’t have time to waste for other to catch up on his vision and thought out process for doing things the right way the first time.

I realize how fortunate I am/was to be part of something that has provided not only a career but a sense of family for so many over the years.

Now that is something you can hang your hat on!



Thanks Dan!

The world could use a lot more like you..

I knew Dan from IDX (1990) and spent 18.5 years in Systems Division with him and then some more time when he joined me at DI.   He was unique.  Spoke his mind even if, or maybe especially if, you didn’t like what he had to say.   It was always based in truth and he could always back it up.  If he wasn’t a fan, you’d know it.   I took great pride in the fact that he told me one time thathe respected me, “even though I was a manager” because I took the time to stop by regularly and check in on how things were really going.  And then he followed that up with some colorful remarks about managers in general and some specifically.  He did not suffer fools. (Which made the GE years interesting).     Gotta love Dan!  Learned a valuable lesson right there.   Dan taught many lessons to many people in much the same way.   He was a great example of hard work, commitment, loyalty, quality and integrity and a great guy personally.   He was always fun to catch up with.   He will be missed but always remembered.   Rest In Peace Dan.