Ashawna Hailey Obituary

Shawn Hailey - Ashawna
Oct 8, 1949 - Oct 14, 2011
Resident of San Jose
Shawn passed away at home in peace on October 14 at the age of 62. Shawn is survived by his children Neal Hailey and Nora Hailey and by his brother Kim Hailey. Shawn was born in Lubbock, Texas, on October 8, 1949. He attended Texas Tech University, where he co-founded Data-Link Corporation during his senior year. After graduation, he moved on to Martin Marietta to design the launch sequencer for the Sprint Anti-ballistic Missile System. He joined Kim at General Instrument as a microprocessor architect in 1972. He continued computer design at AMD in 1974 by building their first Intel compatible processor - the 9080. While at AMD he also introduced their first non-volatile memory family that competed with the Intel 2708. In 1979, Shawn and Kim founded Meta-Software. They introduced Hspice, a circuit simulator that has become the world standard for high speed circuit analysis. Together with the 120 members of the Meta team, the company went public in 1995 and today is an important part of Synopsys. Videos of this history can be found at silicongenesis.stanford.edu
After a successful career in technology, Shawn embarked on an even greater challenge: the creation of Ashawna, an Independent Entertainment Professional. This was, perhaps, his most important endeavor. This metamorphosis opened the doors on an adventure which brought the newly formed Ashawna into contact with myriad kindred spirits. Ashawna approached the world with a loving and creative, playful, trickster genius that lightened and inspired the lives of those around her. Shawn, Ashawna and all that they created will be missed greatly. We who survive her are eternally grateful for the opportunity to have known her.
Over the years, Ashawna has helped guide and support many causes. She worked with Maps.org to forward a Phase II trial for subjects suffering from treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She was a strong supporter of CODEPINK, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Second Harvest Food Bank. Contributions to Ashawna's favorite causes can be found at www.ashawnahailey.remembered.com.
Whether it was a morning board meeting, a lunch at Taco Bravo, a dinner with President Obama, or an all night dance, the sparkle of Ashawna will be missed and cherished by us all.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by San Jose Mercury News/San Mateo County Times on Oct. 22, 2011.

Memories and Condolences
for Ashawna Hailey

5 Entries

Steve Beck

January 9, 2012

Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.
Andy Warhol

“The cause of death is birth.” The Buddha

In memory of Shawn Ashawna Hailey, whom I met because his brother Kim has been a friend of mine for a long, long time.

When I first met Shawn it was when Kim and he had micro photographed the Z80 microprocessor IC die and had pasted up dozens of 8x10 color prints they had developed on the wall of their apartment in Silicon Valley – I was very impressed! This was around 1976 or so – much of Silicon Valley was still pear orchards then.

Later I visited them at Metasoft where their combined genius extending SPICE from UC Berkeley had invented clever methods for running a test wafer through a fab line, then probing the test circuits to gain better parametric data for that fab to plug into their IC design software – Kim showed me this high density gold plated pin probe instrument they used – he told me it cost them like $50,000.

Both Kim and Shawn are true artists in the sense of Andy Warhol's statement. Kim showed me a large circular stained glass window that he had made and was driving to his father's home in Ouray, Colorado; it was blue beautiful!

Some stories – once when I was in Kauai at Kim and Tracy's wedding in July of 1996 or so, Shawn, Jan, Neal and Nora were all there too, we were all shooting off some extra July 4th fireworks on the beach at night, but then the cops came to bust us – I have a video of that somewhere….gave a copy of it to Kim way back when.

I also remember taking Shawn and Neal for a scuba dive then on Kauai, Neal's first dive, a shore beach dive, but Neal's tank air ran out about 20 minutes into the dive, fortunately we were close to shore in shallow water, and no harm done!

When my video art was shown in the Visual Music exhibition at the LA MOCA art museum in 2005, my wife Candice and I invited Shawn and Jan to see the show, as well as inviting Kim and Tracy and Chris – but it was in Los Angeles, and only Shawn and Jan could make it there then.

Shawn told me that he was surprisingly delighted at the works there – that he had been expecting another boring art museum show – but at the dinner party Candice hosted for our friends who came to the show that evening, Shawn kept talking about how excited he was by the visual music art.

Shawn told me some amazing stories about taking Metasoft public on NASDAQ, dinner parties for brokers at the Rainbow Room on top of Rockefeller Center in New York. I could tell that he was smart and clever and at the top of his game! A true artist of “the deal” in every respect.

In the early 1990's I was a writer for the cyberzine Mondo 2000, based in Berkeley. I invited Shawn and Kim to come up to Berkeley to meet the Mondoids, which he did (Shawn). I was hoping that Shawn might share his brilliance and skill at business and art with Mondo to assist it in getting to the next level. However, while that never came about, he did meet a certain Mondoidess and there was a lot of passion for them for a while after the meeting.

With no disrespect to the family, I only mention this story because it seems that after all was said and done, that many good things came out of that for Shawn and their family, though at the time perhaps one might have observed it all and had a different opinion.

I did not ever meet Ashawna per se, had last seen Shawn in 2008 or 2009 for dinner with Jan, Candice and our friend Jane near their SOMA place, but I did have the fun of being at birthday parties a few years ago for Kim and Shawn as he was evolving into she. Being that they are fraternal twins, I have often pondered the embryonic DNA of the two persons, and wondered about the gender evolution that enfolded later in her life.

A life that was fully lived in so many dimensions with gusto, intelligence, passion, and a flare for pushing the edge and beyond……we extend our sympathy to the Hailey families, but remember a person, man and woman, who accomplished so very, very much – may Ashawna's soul rest in peace!

Steve Beck
Berkeley, California

Betsy G

November 8, 2011

It was always great to see Ashawna. We had fun , I miss her. Betsy G.

Lynette Herring

November 8, 2011

Ashawna,
Thank you for your presence in our lives and your courage in expressing your truth.

Lori Precious

October 30, 2011

Dearest Ashawna,
You were an inspiration, generously sharing your life and wisdom. You meant so much to me and always will. Life got a little more dull when you left us. Godspeed. With love, Lori Precious

Carolyn Garcia

October 22, 2011

Ashawna inspired me to try a new line of discourse, and by her intelligence, motivated many to find new avenues for research, conversation and friendship. Uniqueness is such a positive!

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