William Barry

We will remember Bill as being fun-loving, curious, and keenly observant of human behavior. He was always open to new experiences. He was as comfortable skiing down a snowy mountain as he was swimming, surfing, and sailing in the waters off the Florida coast.

From a young age he was always compassionate whether comforting and helping people one-on-one, or in his later work to promote safe, healthy practices and emergency planning in the larger population.

Bill always wanted to do things differently and that made him a unique and magnetic person. He marched to the beat of his own drum and lived every day to its fullest. In the short forty four years Bill was on this earth, he left a lasting mark on everyone he interacted with.

He grew up in Visalia, California and Woodstock, Vermont. He briefly made South Portland, Maine, and then Atlanta, Georgia his home. Seventeen years ago he moved to Palm Beach County, Florida. He had graduated from Southern Maine Community College’s paramedic program where he worked emergencies as a first responder, then as a medical technician in a Vermont Veteran’s Hospital, and later at an Atlanta inner city hospital. He graduated from Johnson State College in Vermont at the time his second daughter was born. When settled in Florida he earned a Master of Public Health from Florida International University in Miami where he assisted in the AIDs Prevention Program. Bill worked for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Miami for a number of years. He also worked a fair number of odd jobs throughout his life, collecting stories and lessons from people of all walks of life, applying them to his own experiences.

He was passionate about promoting the best wellbeing for the greatest number of people. Recently he turned his passion to combatting misinformation, and urging more intellectual unity in a potentially post-truth era.

He survived trauma and great heartbreaks, including the loss at birth of his first daughter. He experienced more love and joy than he thought possible in parenting his second daughter. He will be greatly missed by her as well as his parents, many friends and family.

“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” – Albert Camus