CHICAGO (BRAIN) — John Cheever, an engineering leader at SRAM since soon after the company's founding, has died at age 50 after a three-year battle with brain cancer, the company announced Wednesday.
Cheever joined SRAM as an engineer in 1989 and eventually became the company's first director of engineering.
"We will miss John. He leaves behind a great legacy at SRAM, but more importantly a world of admiring friends and family. We at SRAM are forever lucky to have met, worked and played with this nice man, John Cheever," said SRAM's Mike Mercuri.
Cheever's wife Janice was at his side at their home in Florida when he died Sunday.
The company said Cheever was responsible for many of the technologies and refinements that drove the growth of Grip Shift throughout the 90's. He co-developed the first ESP derailleurs and was either directly responsible for or contributed significantly to a long list of SRAM patents; he also introduced computer-aided design to SRAM.
John and Janice Cheever were high school sweethearts who married in 1989.
"They are a notoriously fun couple," a SRAM statement said. "Always up for throwing a party, which they often did, they were warm and generous hosts to all of SRAM. They loved music and especially the music scene in Chicago. John was an accomplished musician and singer. With band mates he met in high school they played together for 25 years at parties and small clubs around Chicago."
According to an obituary on Legacy.com, the family will hold a celebration of his life in Illinois in the spring.
The family asked that memorial contributions be made to The Cancer Support Center, the Northwestern Brain Tumor Institute, or World Bicycle Relief in his memory.
