Mike Brubacher, inventor of BESS, has passed away

[Ken S]

I received an email from my longtime friend, forum member Grepper, informing me that our friend, Mike Brubacher, had passed away. Mike was the inventor of the Edge on Up testers and the BESS system. He was a smart and good hearted guy. Grepper knew him better than I did, so I will post Grepper's notice from the Bessex group
(the forum for BESS users):

"It is with a heavy heart I say that Mike Brubacher passed away last night, 2025/01/30, about 11:00 pm.

For those of you who don't know, Mike invented our edge sharpness testing instruments, the PT50 series, Edge Lab, the BESS (Brubacher Edge Sharpness Scale), was the founder of Edge On Up and changed the world of edge sharpness testing.  A truly amazing man.  Thank you Mike!

Temperature used to be described with words like "chilly" or "freezing" or whatever.  In the 1600's European physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit gave the world a way to measure temperature and describe it to others in numerical degrees.  Now we can say it's 34° F. 
 
Before Mike, sharpness was described as "scary sharp", "razor sharp", etc.  Mike gave the world the ability to share exactly how sharp an edge is and affordable equipment to test it.  Instead of "shaving sharp", thanks to Mike, now we can say the edge is BESS 134 and everyone world wide can know exactly what that means.

The ability to communicate edge sharpness is revolutionary, changed the sharpening world, and we all have Mike Brubacher to thank for it.  He was an amazing man.

On a personal note, Mike and I were close friends.  I already miss being able to share life moments and thoughts with him.  I feel so lucky our life paths crossed."

Ken