Torstein Tranoy

Hi.  When I started on my entrepreneurial journey in early 2008, I looked at some really cool office space down in Tribeca.  The "incubator space" project was one of an eleven point initiative started by the Bloomberg Administration to help unemployed financial services professionals reinvent themselves.  I spent a couple of really fun hours with the owner of the space on Debrosses Street and he advised me not to sign up until I really knew that I was going to start my own business.  Later on that afternoon I got a call on my cellphone from a European caller.  At first, I thought, "Great.  Here I am unemployed and I am receiving wrong numbers from Europe".  But the caller told me he was actually looking for me.  He was a Norwegian journalist who was writing an article on the Bloomberg program and he was downtown talking to the owner of the Debrosses space who suggested he talk to me.

Torstein Tranoy met me a couple of days later at Bouchon Bakery in the Time Warner Center.  He had a stringer photographer and I felt like a true celebrity as Torstein interviewed me and the photographer snapped dozens of photos.  We had a wonderful time and Torstein was one of the important people who encouraged me to continue on my journey.  He was kind, funny, enthusiastic and extremely interesting.  And shortly thereafter, he sent me the article, complete with my photos, which ran in the Norwegian equivalent of the Financial Times.

I don't know what made me Google him a few days ago.  But I did.  And it was in Wikipedia that I learned that Torstein died very suddenly in September of 2008.  He did not know the many times that I have told the story about receiving his call.  He did not know how much I enjoyed getting to know him although so very brief.

And so, I write about my sadness about the loss of Torstein Tranoy.  Rest in peace, my friend.