Scott M. Wimer died Sunday, May 17, 2020, in Renton, Wash. He was surrounded by his family as he passed peacefully from this world into the next.
Born Aug. 26, 1975, in Cottonwood to Jack and Jeanne Wimer, Scott was the eldest of seven children. He loved working as much as he loved learning. He didn’t wait for work to find him, but sought out jobs that offered a challenge.
At age 8, he raised rabbits for sale. From fifth grade on, after school and during summers, he worked at his father’s machine shop. During high school, on many nights he could be found rocking tape decks and light boards as he and his friend, Sean Wilson, deejayed dances late into the night. After graduating from Prairie High School in 1993, Scott went to the University of Idaho in the fall. The summer of 1995, he took a small job in Los Angeles with the then-startup Earthlink Network. That summer job turned into a five-year stint. When he returned to the university, he no longer studied law but computer science.
Scott graduated from the University of Idaho in 2000 with a general studies degree, which he called his “certificate of attendance.” He had found a new job in computer security with Dr. John Munson, one of his university professors, at Cylant Technology. There he helped pioneer novel intrusion detection software for use in the Defense Department’s Cyber Panel.
On Aug. 5, 2000, he married his college sweetheart, Alicia M. Hyde. Their marriage was blessed with four living children, and two miscarried children born into Heaven.
One of Scott’s greatest joys in life was the lively conversations that he, Alicia, and their children had. Scott had been a member of the debate club all four years of high school and was an ASUI Senator at the University of Idaho.
He passed a love of debate and discussion on to his children. He and his family would often discuss the current affairs of the world around the dinner table. Scott’s special interest was the intersection of technology, economics and politics. He was an incisive thinker and believed in the dignity of people.
If you asked him what he did for a living, he would say he got paid to play with computers. Scott was a software engineering generalist, but if you asked him what interested him most in computers, he wouldn’t hesitate to tell you that computer security was “the puppy that followed him home.”
Through the years, his security work took him from Moscow, to Bend, Ore., to Boston, to Arlington, Va. In Arlington, he worked a subcontracting job for the Department of Defense that required a security clearance. The fact that he could not discuss his work with his family was one of the hardest crosses he had to bear during that time. In the end, he moved his family back to the Pacific Northwest to spend more time with extended family, though he knew he would lose the opportunity to work on cleared projects in the future.
Scott was gifted with a quick wit and a mischievous sense of humor. When he first started working at Smartsheet, he began wearing funny T-shirts to the office as a way for others to get to know him on his bimonthly trips to Seattle. At the end of July 2019, Scott joined Dropbox. Five days later, Scott was diagnosed with cancer. He continued to wear his T-shirts, but now he wore them to his doctor’s office as a way to cheer up the staff.
His cancer diagnosis came as a shock, but it never rocked his faith. His cancer and chemotherapy side effects were painful, but he accepted his suffering, often saying, “God is good, all the time.” And when people offered to pray for Scott, he asked for prayers for peace and strength.
He is survived by his beloved wife, Alicia, and four of their children: Lauren, Ian, Sean and Ryan; his parents, Jack and Jeanne Wimer; his siblings, Robert, Matthew, John (Gosia), Pete (Jill), Richard (Kristen) and Mary; and many aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews.
Scott was preceded in death by two of his children, Patrick and Fiona, born into Heaven; his grandparents, Rupert Wimer and Kathryn Wimer Nuxoll, and Oliver and Margaret Rousseau, and his grandfather, Martin Nuxoll; his uncles, Joseph Rousseau and Ronald Wimer, and his aunt, Marilyn Wimer.
A rosary will be recited at 10 a.m. today at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Cottonwood followed by the funeral Mass at 10:30 a.m. Burial will follow at the Cottonwood Catholic Cemetery. Arrangements are under the direction of Blackmer Funeral Home.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to St. John Bosco Academy, Cottonwood, or Lifespring Cancer Treatment Center of Seattle.
