Matt Weber was known for fixing things.
Whether he was problem solving as the senior web developer for the Hillsdale College information technology services department or simply tinkering with a broken garage door opener at home, Weber always knew how to approach a problem with patience.
Matthew Weber died on Monday, Oct. 23, after a three-year battle with cancer. He is survived by his wife, Amy, and 5-year-old son, Jonah.
“He enjoyed when things didn’t go 100 percent right, and he had to think about it,” Amy Weber said. “He could take things apart and get them to work again.”
Matthew Weber joined Hillsdale’s ITS in November 2010. Co-workers describe him as open, intelligent, and friendly.
“He was always quick to help somebody out,” said Jim Clark, who joined ITS as a systems analyst in 2015.
Weber was also open about his struggles with cancer, Clark said.
“The last week that he came in was the best I’ve ever seen him,” Clark said. “I saw him at his best. That’s how I like to remember him.”
The department was quick to rally around Weber, after his diagnosis in 2014, gathering each morning at 8 a.m. to pray in the ITS training room.
“We’re open about our faith here at Hillsdale. We’re believers in Christ, and we don’t hide that,” said Kevin Maurer, the information system manager in ITS. “We were able to pray openly with him at work. We did that for years.”
Faith was important to the Weber family, and they ensured Jonah attended Vacation Bible School this summer at College Baptist Church, even after Matthew Weber was too sick to attend regularly.
“Matt had no doubts about where he was going,” his wife said. “There’s comfort in that.”
Ben Cuthbert, the pastor at College Baptist, agreed: “Matt was a man who trusted in Christ and wanted to be the best husband and father he could be with his days on Earth.”
In addition to characteristics like problem solver and Christian, Weber proudly proclaimed another one, as well.
“He was a self-proclaimed nerd,” his wife said, laughing softly. She would often buy him shirts “only fellow nerds would understand,” she added.
And after seeing the ergonomic mouse he brought from home and his novelty office lighting, it was a title his co-workers applied to him, as well.
“I mean, who has a Tetris lamp?” Maurer said. “You only get that stuff from nerds.”
Ultimately, though, Amy Weber remembers her husband as a “good-hearted person.”
“If you ask anybody’s spouse what’s special about them,” she said, “they would say everything.”