Less - Than - Super Hero

courtesy Happy Worker Inc.

Ever stroll down a toy store aisle and notice how all the action figures look the same? Six-pack abs, cleft chins, expressions of grim determination - you've seen one, you've seen them all.

Enter GeekMan.

Skinny, bespectacled and decidedly unstylish, GeekMan is a superhero for those who read Macworld cover to cover. Several times. GeekMan is the brainchild of budding toy entrepreneur Kris Schantz, BSc'02. Schantz began his McGill degree in biochemistry in the mid-'90s, taking time out to pursue jobs as a web developer and product manager during the dot-com craze. "I was a science geek who was also a computer nerd," Schantz explains.

He returned to McGill to complete his degree "just as the tech bubble burst. Seeing all my friends and colleagues go through the dot-com gloom-and-doom period made me think we needed a superhero for the digital world, someone to save us." And so GeekMan was born.

According to the action figure's website, his superpowers include "ungodly coding abilities," the "ability to create technical acronyms" and "opposite sex repulsion." Tragically, like Achilles and Superman, GeekMan has his own special vulnerabilities. He doesn't cope well with wedgies, dodge balls or "girls of the Internet." GeekMan comes with a pocket protector, laptop, coffee mug and a magnetized personal digital assistant that sticks to his belt.

With his wife, Shirley Yee, BSc'98, Schantz runs Happy Worker Inc., the toy company that makes and distributes GeekMan. The long-term plan is for GeekMan to become the first in a line of what Schantz describes as "everyday action figures, the heroes who walk among us." Next up is MoneyMan, an accountant/banker type, equipped with a paper shredder and a piggy bank.

After that? Schantz is thinking of superheroes possessing qualities evident in academics who populate a university like his alma mater. Schantz is open to ideas, challenging McGill graduates to propose quirky characteristics reminiscent of their most memorable professors.

To reach Schantz, or to learn more, visit www.happyworker.com.

Big Name in Brantford

Dr. James Digby addresses colleagues at Brantford General Hospital as the announcement is made about Digby Drive.

The name Digby carries a lot of weight in Brantford, Ontario. Since 1830, residents have grown accustomed to the remarkable civic leadership and medical skills exhibited by four generations of Digbys.

Dr. Alfred Digby arrived in Brantford 175 years ago to tend to the medical needs of the nearby Six Nations Reserve. He served on town council, briefly became mayor and participated in Brantford's last official duel after he and a colleague had a particularly heated disagreement over an obstetrical case - thankfully, the two men were better doctors than marksmen and both survived.

Alfred's son, James, began a new family tradition when he earned his medical degree from McGill in 1862. Too young to practise in Ontario, James briefly relocated to the U.S., using his surgical skills to stitch up Civil War casualties. Returning in 1866, James became Brantford's first mayor and co-founded the Brantford General Hospital.

Next came James's son, Reginald Digby, MDCM'12, a WWI vet who overcame a debilitating hearing impairment to establish himself as a highly regarded industrial physician for Massey and other local companies, organizing one of Canada's first industrial medical conferences in Brantford.

Reginald's son, James Digby, BSc'48, MDCM'52, became the third McGill-trained doctor in the family. The chief of staff for the Brantford General from 1993 to 2001, Digby helped plan major renovations to the hospital. Prior to that, he was the Brantford General's two-term chief of surgery.

In recognition of the Digbys' many contributions over the years, the Brantford General's board of directors recently decided to name the road leading up to the entrance of the hospital's new D wing "Digby Drive."

"This is a good place to live, a good place to raise children and a good place to practise medicine," explains James, saying there was never any question in his mind that he would train at McGill and carry on his family's work. The only complication related to the off-campus delights Montreal offered in the bustling post-war era during which he studied medicine.

"The night clubs. The skiing. It was hard to get any work done."