Messer, Timothy Elbert, born 22 January 1946 in Lansing, Michigan, grew up in an odyssey of moves from Lansing to Chicago to St. Louis to Kansas City, MO, to Overland Park, Kansas. He was drafted into the Army in 1965 and served in combat in Vietnam in 1967-68. He earned a purple heart and fought in Tet '68. After his discharge in 1968, he entered show business, first as a roadie for rock groups and then as a tour manager for such acts as Foreigner, George Benson, Jean-Luc Ponti, Ricky Nelson, Lou Reed, Fog Hat, and others. He overcame the inevitable showbiz sins of drugs, drink and smoking in an act of real personal courage and determination and by the mid-1980s was embarked on a variety of careers that always began at the bottom and worked up to some form of management. Starting as a cab driver in Los Angeles, he rose to be the manager of the cab company and argued pro se before the court, besting the lawyers of the Los Angeles Public Utility Commission to grant greater freedom for cab companies to structure their business. He started as a temp with Goodyear in Phoenix, maker of jet engine turbine blades and rose to be a de facto manager of the production operation. He started as a temp with a call center at a medical testing center in Phoenix and was asked to design a training course for employees that, in effect, was establishing the operational protocols and regulations to govern call center operations. In each case, when he encountered unwarranted adversities, he accepted the cards he was dealt and moved on to another profession. His life was a study in achievement and courage in the face of set backs. With little education beyond High School, he was a life-long autodidact whose breadth of reading, memory, and understanding was truly remarkable. He will be greatly missed and is survived by his wife, Rosie, his brother, Alan, and his nephew, Ethan.
