Family and friends gathered Saturday in a packed church to remember ArrowStream CEO Steven LaVoie, who was shot in a workplace shooting in Chicago’s Loop over the summer.
“He was just a really, really wonderful guy,” said family friend Lynn Vear. “We are really upset and still in shock.”
Inside the First Presbyterian Church of LaGrange, where family, friends and former classmates congregated Saturday, a band played Steely Dan, one LaVoie’s favorite bands.
“It was packed,” said former classmate of LaVoie Ann Manikas. “So many people loved him.”
LaVoie, the CEO of the loop-based tech firm ArrowStream, was shot twice on July 31st by a disgruntled employee who later turned the gun on himself and committed suicide. LaVoie’s wife detailed her husband’s recovery on a community website, but last Monday, she posted the news that her husband had died of complications from the gunshot wounds.
“He was a very special man,” said Judy Knudsen, a volunteer at LaGrange Hospital.
Many on Saturday described LaVoie as a wholesome, authentic ad dedicated husband and father.
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“He was the most inspirational person I’ve ever met in my life,” said his former classmate Gary Davidson.
It’s been almost 30 years since some of LaVoie’s former Yale classmates have seen him, but that didn’t stop them from attending the services Saturday.
“My favorite comment from his cousin was that he would feel sad for us, for our pain, more than he would feel sad for himself,” said Manikas. “That’s truly like what he was as a man.”
