To all of Dean's many friends and family members,

I am saddened to share that Dean passed away in Oakland, CA on Christmas Day 2020, after a most courageous fight with cancer for more than 16 years. On that day, the world lost an exceptional human being and a brilliant mind.   

I imagine that this news has already reached many of you, but Dean's family and I wanted to connect with his larger community, share a little more about his amazing life, and to ask for your help gathering photos as we plan his memorial.

Below you will find a tribute to Dean's life which was written by his father with contributions from his ex-wife Gina and me. Please feel free to respond with thoughts and other stories here. Additional photos have been posted to tributes.com. 

We plan to hold a memorial service for Dean at a future date. We are waiting intentionally until a time when more of Dean's friends and family will be able to travel, and when we can safely gather to celebrate his life.

In the meantime, please send any photos of Dean that you are willing to share to dean8sarah@gmail.com so that they can be incorporated into our celebration of his life. 

If I've learned anything from knowing and loving Dean, it's that life is precious and every moment of it is worth fighting for. I hope his life inspires all of us to be fully present in the moments and to love those we hold dear without holding anything back.

Love,
Sarah




Life is nothing but an opportunity for love to blossom.

If you are alive, the opportunity is there – even to the last breath.

You may have missed your whole life: just the last breath,

the last moment on the earth, if you can be love,

you have not missed anything – because a single moment

of love is equal to the whole eternity of love.

Konstantinos (“Dino”, “Dean”) G. Haritos

September 9, 1973 – December 25, 2020

Dean was born on September 9, 1973 at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Hospital, in Dayton, OH.  Moving with his family often (his father was an active-duty USAF Officer), he attended elementary and middle schools in Colorado Springs, CO (K-3rd grade), Beavercreek, OH (4th-6th), Montgomery, AL (7th), and Burke, VA (8th).  His thirst for knowledge, drive to succeed, and scholastic aptitude were evident from a very young age.  Based on his performance in National and State tests, he was placed in gifted and talented (GT) programs from 4th through 8th grade.  As a fifth grader, he became his school’s spelling bee champion, and went on to finish third in the region.  While in eighth grade, at the GT magnet center at Lake Braddock Secondary School, VA, he earned several honors, including the Presidential Academic Fitness Award, and the Best Algebra Student Award.

Dino, as his parents and family called him, grew up within a loving, large family mostly centered in the Chicago area where his late paternal grandparents Konstantinos (Gus) and Maria (Marika), his father George and his uncle Demetris (Jim) emigrated from Athens, Greece in 1964.  He lived in Chicago between the ages of 2 and 5, when his parents were both PhD students at Northwestern University. Even though he moved often with his parents George and Mary (Martell) and younger sister Marika, he returned to Chicago often for vacations, Holidays, and family celebrations.  His mother Mary was born and raised in Chicago and her late parents Victor and Eileen and her late younger brother John also lived there, so Dino spent a lot of time with both sides of his immediate family.  The Chicago area was also home to a very large extended family.  In that way, whenever in Chicago, Dino and several cousins and friends in his age group had a grand time during frequent large family and friends gatherings.

With a characteristic easy smile, he was very well liked and made friends easily everywhere he went.  He enjoyed helping other students with homework and always tried to make everyone feel better when dealing with a difficult situation.  Everyone who got to know him loved him.

Encouraged by his science teachers to apply for admission to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST), a Governor’s Magnet School in Virginia, he was one of 390 applicants selected for admission out of 1,350 who tested.  While at Jefferson, he became a National Merit Finalist, a member of the National Honor Society, the Secretary of the National Spanish Honor Society, and a member of the Varsity Soccer Team.  He also tutored in physics, chemistry, and Spanish.

He applied and was accepted for admission into a number of excellent universities and decided to attend the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, CA.  He excelled in his studies, winning several academic honors.  A member of the Varsity Soccer Team, was elected by his teammates to be one of the team’s two co-captains.  He received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering with Honor in Spring 1995.

While at Caltech, he met Gina Serraiocco, a Biology major, and they fell in love.  They were married a few years later, in May 2001, after Gina graduated from Washington University Medical School in Saint Louis and returned to California.  They were practically still newlyweds when Dean was diagnosed with Stage 4 thymoma in early 2004.

During their 10-year marriage, Gina stood by Dean’s side during a roller-coaster of treatments spanning the country, seeking out the best specialists and researchers in the field. Dean ultimately had a risky but life-altering surgery by the late Dr. David Sugarbaker at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s hospital.  Dr. “SugarB” (as Dean liked to call him) debulked the cancer, removed Dean’s entire left lung, and replaced part of his heart lining (pericardium) with Gortex.  Dean liked to think of himself as the Bionic Man after that.

Dean was always a very self-empowered advocate for his health.  While he respected and adhered to MD advice, he was never limited by it.  As a bike rider, Dean found inspiration through Lance Armstrong’s own epic cancer journey, and also embraced a multi-modality approach to his treatment.  Dean welcomed all manner of mind-body-lifestyle therapies and philosophies including vegetarianism (briefly), yoga, craniosacral therapy, meditation, acupuncture, chiropractic, NET, reiki, bending of the quantum field, regular exercise, select supplements and more. In fact, witnessing Dean’s success with this approach inspired Gina to pursue a fellowship and board certification in Integrative Medicine, on top of her Internal Medicine training. She feels that Dean’s legacy lives on in each patient that she treats. They remained close friends throughout his journey.  

Immediately upon graduation from Caltech, Dean was admitted to Stanford University’s graduate program and accepted an atomic physics Research Assistantship in the Electrical Engineering Department.  Between 1995 and 1997, he completed his Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, passed his PhD qualifying examinations, and developed and implemented a robust atom interferometer to measure gravity gradients.  Upon receiving his MS, he turned down his PhD appointment to enter industry.

Dean joined Hewlett-Packard in San Jose, CA, as a Sr. Member of Technical Staff, first at HP Labs and then at HP’s commercial fiber optics division (1997-1999).  At HP Labs, he developed a low-cost, manufacturable fiber-optic interface for 10 Gb/s datacomm.  At HP’s commercial fiber optics division, Agilent, he designed and released Gigabit Ethernet optical subassemblies into high-volume production in Singapore and Malaysia.  Later, he led a worldwide team of engineers in development of a low-cost Gigabit Ethernet transceiver.

Always looking for new challenges, in 1999 Dean joined several classmates from Caltech and Stanford at Finisar, a Silicon Valley fiber optics company.  During his four years at Finisar, 1999-2003, he was promoted four times to positions of increasing responsibility.  Hired as a Senior Design Engineer, Test Engineering, he was promoted first to Manager, Product Engineering, then to Senior Manager, Product and Test Engineering, next to Director, Manufacturing Engineering, and finally to Senior Director, Photonics and Optomechanics.  He was tasked with creating new engineering departments as Finisar grew from 100 to 2,000 employees in Asia, Europe, and North and South America, and from $35M to $166M in annual revenue. During his time there, Finisar went public and moved from a niche player to dominating the fiber optics market. In 2003, he declined a promotion to VP Engineering to start his first company.

In 2004, Finisar Founder Frank Levinson wrote an article in his August newsletter – Frank’s Corner – entitled “One of Finisar’s Many Bright Stars” which outlined Dean’s contributions to the Company.  He wrote “… Dean Haritos came to Finisar in 1999 … and he is one of the brightest, most energetic, and determined young engineers we know… Dean managed several Finisar manufacturing engineering teams in the U.S., Singapore, Malaysia and Germany.  Among his many skills are the abilities to build new organizations from scratch … and integrating new operations into the rest of the company.”

In August 2003, Dean ventured out from Finisar and became one of the co-founders of Cloudbreak/PushMX Software.  Frank continues “As CEO of Cloudbreak, Dean is continuing to further his personal goals of growth and achievement… Dean’s departure from Finisar doesn’t dim our memories of his many contributions… In the Finisar lab in Sunnyvale and in our remote manufacturing plant in Malaysia are scores of symbols of his commitment to Finisar – we affectionately call them DH testers, after Dean Haritos, who managed the engineering team that designed them, builds them and maintains them today … Finisar has deployed about one hundred of these … very specialized automated test systems… Every fiber optics module that Finisar manufactures today is tested on one of these stations… The DH tester is only one of many contributions that Dean Haritos and his engineering teams have made at Finisar… Dean is one of those people who solves even the most difficult problems and challenges with untiring dedication and determination driving forward until the solution is securely at hand.”

“In March, 2004 Dean stopped by Finisar for one of his regular visits and shared with us an unimaginable turn of events. A few days earlier, his doctors had diagnosed a rare form of cancer and Dean’s life was instantly transformed from that of an energetic, no-limits 30-year old Silicon Valley entrepreneur to that of an oncology patient with a serious illness.  The news reverberated throughout Finisar and among our customers, and messages of encouragement poured in from Dean’s many friends and colleagues from around the world who have so highly respected his work.”

“Dean has accepted his diagnosis, addressing it like every other tough challenge he has faced and overcome.  “Cancer is a part of nature, Dean says.  People shouldn’t spend precious time stressing about it.  It’s part of life.””

His family, devastated by this news, traveled coast-to-coast from Ohio to be by his side during his surgeries and for both pre- and post-surgeries chemotherapy treatments.  His father (Babba in Greek) will never forget Dino’s words immediately after he was taken to the recovery room following his first surgery, after the surgeon had shared a terrible outcome – separately, with both Dino (at his request) and the family.  He said it was disappointing, he couldn’t get the tumors out and he estimated that Dino had only six months to a year left.  As he was lying in bed in the recovery room, and seeing his father visibly upset, Dino said:  “Don’t cry Babba, it’s not how long you live, it’s what you do while you’re alive that matters.”

Dean’s diagnosis came a mere seven months after starting PushMX… but it didn’t slow him down… neither did chemotherapy, nor two major surgeries – the first at Stanford Medical Center and the second at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston - both in 2004, followed by more chemotherapy.  He raised $3M in venture capital and grew the company to $1M+ in annual revenue in less than 5 years.  PushMX Software distilled lean manufacturing principles into software that allowed mortgage professionals to execute more loans in less time with fewer resources, typically doubling their revenues.  The company closed in the 2008 mortgage market crash, as 70% of the company’s customers folded over 9 months.

In a “recovery year” following his intense startup experience, he joined Infinera as Director, Program Management.  During 15 months with this company, he led the release program management department.

In October 2009, Dean and Frank Levinson co-founded and launched a VC incubator – Small World Group - which focused on clean tech, optics, and materials start-ups in Singapore and the U.S.  They were one of seven selected out of 34 applicants for a Grant from the Singapore National Research Foundation whose aim was to kickstart their entrepreneurial ecosystem.  Dean spent 2009 – 2014 with the Group as it funded 20 companies in Singapore and the U.S. During this period, he also founded and served as Interim CEO of Green Line Innovations in Singapore and Silicon Valley (May-Dec 2011).

From June 2012 to June 2015 Dean also led an energy storage startup – Spinlectrix, Inc. in Burlingame, CA, as President and CEO.  The company developed a pioneering energy-storing, contact-free flywheel that has the longest lifetime in energy storage.

In June 2014, Dean founded IGNITRR, LLC in the Greater Denver Area, CO.  The company provided mentorship through weekly coaching and deployment of operational systems assisting 14 startup founders to hit their first $1M in sales.  Seventeen months later, he had to return to Stanford for specialized cancer treatments that Denver area hospitals couldn’t provide. As he restarted chemotherapy, he took nine months (Nov 2015 to Jul 2016) to pursue a long-considered project, screenwriting, which combined his passions for writing and film.

Throughout his very long and most trying battle with cancer, Dean’s family was right there with him with all the support they could muster.  They traveled many times to the Bay Area, to the East Coast, to Denver, and to DC (he was selected for an experimental trial therapy by the NIH) as often as possible to be by his side during both the good times – when treatments were helping him feel better and more optimistic, and the difficult periods – when scans and/or adverse side effects indicated that new treatments were necessary.  Many, many friends and extended family prayed for him, prayer groups at several Churches added his name to their list, and Dean himself organized coast-to-coast remote meditation gatherings with family and friends seeking positive energy directed toward him.  He was so much loved by so many that all of this outpouring of support came naturally.

Dean founded his 6th company - nichefinity, LLC, in July 2016.  This company supplied fractional CEO and COO services to help Bay Area startups scale up to meet soaring market demand.  At present, nichefinity is an investment holding company. In September 2020, Dean founded a 7th company, Soluti8n, Inc., a new software startup.

In 2015, Dean met Sarah Young from Oakland, CA. On their first date, the pair walked Lake Merritt together as they got to know one another. In the last stretch of their walk, a young woman saw Sarah and called her name. After a brief exchange, Sarah explained to Dean that the woman was the daughter of her best childhood friend, who had passed away from cancer a decade earlier. Dean would later share that he was touched by this interaction and Sarah’s willingness to open up about the loss of her friend. On their second date, Dean shared details of his health history and Sarah was immediately inspired by his fierce determination and optimism. Sarah knew after that second date that their lives would be connected. The pair fell in love almost instantly, and in September 2017 they were married after a year-long engagement.

Dean and Sarah spent five very happy, wonderful years together. For Sarah, Dean was a perfect fit; a partner who accepted her and her daughter, Suede, completely, and whose presence in their lives made everything better. For Dean, Sarah was loving, patient and supportive, no matter the circumstances. The two were happy people when they met, but they would often marvel at how they made each other even happier. For their five years together, the couple felt endlessly grateful to have met and experienced a love like no other. In 2020, even as Dean’s health was declining, he shared that he felt a sudden and miraculous lift of the stress and anxiety that had always been part of his coping with cancer. He would marvel at how much peace he experienced in the last months of his life; a peace that was with him to his last breaths. Sarah was constantly at Dean’s side as his health worsened and helped keep alive the optimism that had fueled his battle against cancer for so many years. Her love, support, and belief that he could beat cancer never waived, so much so that his passing came as a shock, despite the almost two decade-long battle. The night before he passed, Dean fell into a deep sleep that lasted 12 hours. Sarah laid by his side, listening to his light snores and talking to him as he slept. Moments before he died, he suddenly opened his eyes wide and looked right at her. She told him that she loved him, that he was so loved by so many people, that he could let go, that he didn’t need to fight any longer, and that a love greater that he could ever imagine was waiting to embrace him. Dean passed peacefully within seconds of these last words. Dean invested whole-heartedly into all of his many relationships, and will be deeply missed by all who love him.