In Memory of Michael Bedford

While MapQuest may have one of the top well-recognized brands, we're actually a small tight-knit group. Losing one of our valued colleagues hit us hard.

On October 25th, 2008 Mike Bedford, a MapQuest Senior Software Engineer passed away unexpectedly after dealing with a recent illness. Mike was survived by his family.

Mike had been with MapQuest since 1999 and was an integral part of the formative years of our company. Mike had a variety of responsibilities through the years including:

1. Lead Developer on MapQuest's first Wireless endeavor - Send to Sprint - allowing the MQ user to send directions to Sprint phones and ultimately allowing the MQ site to be viewed on those handsets circa 2000.

2. Lead Developer on a historic project to migrate from the MQ proprietary technology platform (circa 1999) to the AOL technology platform based on ADP and AOL Server

3. Lead Developer on MapQuest.com from 2001 - 2006 - earned the nickname 'one-man show'.

4. Beginning in late 2007 was part of the team responsible for developing MapQuest 4 Mobile, a free native mapping application for handsets.

Mike was a technophile always buying and hacking the latest technologies. He was a consistent and dependable member of our engineering team and had a fun spirited side to him as well. He was affectionately known as the office prankster. He was a first class individual and he will be greatly missed. We feel our thoughts are summed up by the written words of a former coworker: "Bedford will be sorely missed..... He was a good friend....."

Our thoughts and prayers are with Mike's family.