Yuri Tverskoy
September 3rd, 1950 – July 26th, 2008

Our friend and colleague Yuri Tverskoy, in our Mississauga office, passed away Saturday July 26th.

Only a few weeks earlier Yuri had gone to hospital not feeling well. During his visit he received the news he had cancer.

Yuri was born and raised in West Ukraine, with a passion for learning. At the age of 17, he was accepted to the Lvov Polytechnic Institute where he completed a degree in Industrial and Commercial structures. After graduation, he gained valuable experience as a Construction Consultant for seven years before he moved his family to Canada.

Once established in Toronto as a Steel Detailer at Marshall Steel in 1981, Yuri continued his education by completing three levels of Structural Steel Detailing at Seneca College. This enabled him to take a position with Canron Inc. as a Steel Detailing Checker. In 1994, he took the opportunity to broaden his learning horizons by completing a course in Programming Analysis and Networking Support and in 1997, he came to work for Dowco Consultants and never looked back.

Yuri was one of Dowco Ontario’s first hires and was a valuable and contributing member of staff since his arrival. In fact, Yuri was the longest serving member of our Ontario team.

Hugh Sr. tells the story of his first meeting with Yuri when Yuri worked for Baseline, another company in Ontario. Hugh had travelled to Ontario to perform an Xsteel demo for this company and Yuri was the staff member selected to review the software demo. Yuri was suitably impressed with the Tekla software, could see the potential even though his boss opted not to purchase it. Well, it wasn’t long after that that Yuri applied to work for us, when we started recruiting staff to hire for our Ontario office.

Right from the very beginning, Yuri’s knowledge and personality made him a mentor and friend to others on staff.

In addition to detailing, Yuri also enjoyed the odd video game, cooking, and spending time with his family. Yuri also loved to travel – particularly to exotic locations : Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Thailand.

Above all, Yuri’s greatest inspirations come from his loving wife Bella, his daughter Rimma, and his two dogs.

I was fortunate to have sat with Yuri and Bella at the Dowco Christmas party last year and was left with the sense that he was a happy individual who seemed to have found a wonderful balance between career and family.

He will be sadly missed. Our prayers go out to his family.

To honor Yuri’s contributions to the company, we will be presenting a special award in recognition of his years of service and contribution to the company. We are also making a donation to the Canadian Cancer Society in his honour.