A sudden storm on Lake Tahoe this past Sunday capsized a powerboat, and eight people died, among them Josh Pickles (a DoorDash executive), and his parents, Terry Pickles and longtime Apple employee Paula Bozinovich. Brian Croll (a now-retired Apple Product Marketing VP) emailed Daring Fireball’s John Gruber to share a touching reflection on Bozinovich’s impact on Apple:

Paula was an employee who you are not going to see profiled in any books on the history of Apple or Steve Jobs. She worked closely with the ops team to ensure CDs and then DVDs shipped on time and correctly packaged in a box. She knew all the systems and the right people to make things happen. She was always committed to getting things better than just right — perfect. Paula’s extraordinary commitment, along with all the hundreds of other unheralded employees, translated the vision of Steve, the designers, the engineers, and the marketing people into a shipping product.

One of the secrets behind Apple’s success has been its ability to execute. Paula was an important part of that fine-tuned machine. She was also quite a character!

I’m sending you this because I’ve seen front page obituaries of executives who probably did way more harm than good to their companies, and yet when you scratch the surface of a successful company you find that people like Paula make all the difference.

The Apple employee community is surprisingly small in spite of the company’s size, and losing someone from the community, even if we don’t know the person, hurts. Though I’ve never met Paula, I’ve known many people like her: the unheralded people who made, and make, Apple hum. The high-profile names may get all the glory, but Apple would be nothing without people like Paula. I’m grateful to Brian for sharing this tribute.

My sincerest condolences to the friends and family of Paula and all those who died in this tragedy.