A Personal & Technical History of Vancouver's Olympic Rings

On 2011-01-21 I received an e-mail from a gentleman named John Dammeyer regarding this video which I shot on 2009-11-04 & published on YouTube. I had no idea who he was. Soon I would find out though.  Here's an abridged version of what John told me about the two sets of rings that shone brightly in Vancouver during the 2010 Olympics:

Eddy Butler was the Chief Engineer from PBA Engineering. He was the project leader, PBA was the liaison between the Government, VANOC, YVR (Airport Rings), and the company in Salmon Arm that built the rings structure. The work they did was phenomenal.

I designed the lights and control system electronics and software, while a company in Victoria, Coast Circuit Connections along with PBA employees, assembled a total of over 2400 lights.

The PC that ran the light shows had software that was written by Ian Mackay from Denman Software. Alas, he died in the Summer of 2009 so I had to first update the software for the double rings at Coal Harbour and then find another software guy that could take that and add the features like email control and other stuff that was all working in the background - the thankless job part.

Through the Premier's Office a graphics firm was hired to do the light shows for the Coal Harbour Dual rings. It was because of Ian Mackay's forethought that the system was universal enough to be able to read files that were created by the graphics firm. It was one of those shows that you filmed. I'd known Ian for over 35 years. It was a tragic loss where Cancer claimed yet another creative individual. Really sad that he couldn't see how beautiful they turned out.

We had a small bucket truck on the barge used for getting up to the rings for servicing the lights. They extended the bucket way out over the water to take the photo that I've attached for you. It was taken by Dave Nunuk who works for Tourism BC. If you check out Wikipedia with the Lions Gate Bridge as the search parameter you'll see a nice photo he took of the bridge at night. The LED lights were also designed by me and were built and assembled by Eddy Butler.