Guelph Man Lost On Doomed Jet Remembered As ‘Great Guy’
Posted June 2, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Brad Clemes never expected to be famous, to have his name mentioned on news reports, see his picture appear on TV or to be known throughout Canada. By all accounts, the Ontario man was an ordinary guy who was good at his job, loved his family and was looking forward to coming home for a special occasion.
But that was before the 49-year-old boarded Air France Flight 447 on Sunday night, hoping to go from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, and then apparently back to his home in Brussels.
The plane experienced some kind of difficulty in a raging storm over the Atlantic Ocean and is presumed to have crashed, with all 228 onboard feared lost.
Clemes was the sole Canadian on that flight, a devoted family man with a wife and two sons, both in their 20s. The proud dad was about to come back to the city on Saturday for a vacation and a special ceremony – celebrating his son’s graduation from Queen’s University.
Clemes (the name is pronounced Clem-is) was filled with visions of the future on the day he died. In addition to his son’s graduation, a friend tells CityNews he had recently bought a house in High Park. He was supposed to spend much of June back in Ontario.
Clemes came from a big family – four boys and two girls, and was especially close to his brothers. His parents still reside in Guelph, where the family gathered in shock and grief on Monday to absorb the news.
Brad met his wife when they both graduated from Sir Wilfrid Laurier University in 1982. He also attended York University in Toronto. He was remembered at both campuses as an outgoing student and a good athlete who loved to play sports.
His job as a marketing executive with Coca-Cola took him to some far flung places in the world, including Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. But those who knew him best say he never forgot his roots back home and came back to visit as often as he could.
All those asked have seemed to come up with the same two words to describe the lost Canadian: a “great guy.”
“He was a great dad, loved his kids and loved his wife and loved his family, and we loved him back,” his distraught brother Blake recounts.
“He had a tremendous sense of humour, and was always one of the life of the party guys that was always fun to be around.”
Another friend has similar memories. “Brad is an amazing man with a big heart, bigger spirit,” he recalls. “He loved his family more than anything. He loved people and to laugh …
“He has been a great friend to many and is one that has always taken that extra effort to keep in touch regardless of distance or time.”
Like most moms, his never quite seemed to see enough of her son, although he kept in touch. “He’s one of these people that never sits still, go-go-go, very energetic,” Norene Clemes remembers. “He wanted to live in Europe because he wanted to have his two sons grow up and know the whole world.”
The last trip home for the world traveller came just a few weeks ago, when he stopped off for a quick visit in the Royal City before going to his firm’s head office in Atlanta. “I wondered if he’d ever wind down, I never saw him sit down and rest,” she laments.
Adding to the heartbreak is the fact that officials fear they won’t be able to find the people who perished in the disaster. The area is a remote one plagued by bad weather and while crews appear to have spotted some wreckage on Tuesday , it’s feared searchers may never be able to recover the bodies.
