Kenedi Ventura Alvarez 1964 - May 25, 2008

In 2002, a couple weeks after starting a job as manager of the maintenance department of Beacon property management company, I hired Kenedi Ventura Alvarez as my chief maintenance technician. Kenedi had moved up to the Bay Area from Guatemala around 1988 and had been doing this type of work for many years. My background was in construction more than maintenance, so I learned a lot from Kenedi. He was a very pleasant, funny, good-natured individual even under the most stressful & annoying circumstances, while I am decidely not, so I also got to learn a lot from Kenedi about the importance of maintaining one’s calm & sense of humor.

His motto was "ay que sonreir aunque se lo este llevando a uno la gran "#&!@#ta."

He was also a very generous person and an insanely hard worker. A lot of people depended on him, both in Guatemala and the Bay Area, and between his full-time job at Beacon, co-management of a handyman business with his youngest brother Oswaldo, and other side jobs, he basically worked 10+ hours a day 7 days a week.

We had become friends in the two years we worked together, and after I left Beacon, we’d meet for lunch every four or five months to catch up with each other, usually at his favorite cheap Chinese restaurant across from the Grand Lake theater. I hadn’t seen him since maybe February of this year when I got the bad news that Kenedi had died in an autombile accident in Texas. The man who found him dead with his head in the Texas dirt made a cross of stones, put a penny in the middle and prayed for him.

Kenedi was one of the most generous, hard-working and good-natured people I’ve known, and he will be sorely missed. When I talked with his brother Oswaldo at the viewing, he said he felt at peace because at least now Kenedi could get some rest, he didn’t have to go to work, he didn’t have to help anyone out, he didn’t have to solve any problems, he could finally take a day off.