I met Tony in 1993 during our first month of college at Rider University. We met in a computer lab in the stone age of monochrome green monitors and Pine email. He had this long, floppy, wild hair and you couldn't miss him. He loved computers. He was one of those geek-types who could hot rod a gaming computer out of a transistor radio. He also loved helping people, and combined with his love of computers, it defined his career: first as an IT helpdesk manager and later in more fancy roles. But Tony was profoundly much more than a fancy title: helping people is what truly defined his life.

He was everyone's friend. He hand-coded his first website in HTML back in the late 1990s, before there was social media and before we knew what profile pictures were. This was his profile picture:

Even then, he was ahead of his time, on a higher level than everyone else. Tony once said that he chose Rider over much bigger schools because he wanted to be something like a bigger fish in a smaller pond. There were no bigger fish than Tony at Rider. He seemed to be president of every club, like some kind of real-life Max Fischer before there was a Max Fischer. He was president of the Student Government Association, but Tony was never about power. Tony was always about service.

From him, I learned the importance of connections. He had hundreds, maybe thousands back then. (Nearly thirty years later, is it millions? I'm no mathematician, but it probably is.) He knew everybody at Rider, and everyone knew him. If you were there at the time, how could you not? Tony was everywhere. During that wild-haired, wild time of freshman year, he was president of Alpha Lambda Delta, the honor society for first-year students. I was active in the organization then too, but what I remember is being his sidekick, and it was the beginning of a lifetime of collaboration between the two of us.

He was always introducing people to each other. "Hey, do you know (so-and-so)?" Tony always made people feel welcome. He was emotionally intelligent twenty-plus years ago, way before that was even in the zeitgeist. Tony would always ask, "How do you feel about that?" – which became a running joke that I Photoshopped him into, as a rap star with a hit single entitled "How Do You Feel 'Bout That?" (I pimped out his Plymouth Reliant like I was the Xzibit of Photoshop.)

Tony genuinely cared what you felt and thought. He cared very much about people. He also knew that it was important to practice self-care, in order to then do the work of service. In college, he once told me that no matter how busy or stressful his day was, he always made at least 30 minutes for himself so he could watch a rerun of "The Simpsons" and keep his battery full. He was practicing self-care 25 years ago. Even then, he was ahead of his time.

That might be ironic, the notion of him and self-care. He was notorious for catching colds, getting sick, injuring himself, having this doctor's appointment or that specialist consult. But Tony had an intensity for life that he used to power through all of these maladies so that he could be the best, most productive person he could be for his family and friends. He was a striver. He wanted the best in life for himself and his people. Tony always had a book you should read, a process that could help you, someone you should meet. He was a dot connector. He would always have slogans to inspire you, or make you roll your eyes in jest. But I always remember the first time he told me, "It takes teamwork to make the dream work."

Tony lived that slogan. He brought all kinds of people along with him, no matter what he was doing. He was instrumental in bringing worthy men into the fold when we started a chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon at Rider at the end of our junior year, when we probably could have put it in cruise control on the way to graduation and the real world. (Tony had no cruise control setting.) He hired countless people that he was connected to from Rider and SigEp once he reached (quite quickly) a level in his career when he could do that. He was a consummate servant leader. For long stints Tony was the president of the chapter's alumni board, and we collaborated on the alumni magazine that I have produced since 1997. Last summer he had the board over to his house for a barbecue and pool party as he led our quarterly meeting. He had the biggest heart.

Tony was fearless, irreverent, sometimes hilariously inappropriate. There were a few times in college when he would embarrass me in front of girls, but it was his way of bringing light and humor into a situation. (It wasn't like I was some genius at talking to girls anyway.) Tony could take it as well as he could dish it out. He was happy to take it because he was the life of the party. For example, he thought my rap album Photoshop was hilarious, and it was prominently displayed on his website for years. He was fun-loving and had one of those 1000-watt smiles. He was a "smell you later" instead of "goodbye" kind of goofball. Tony had a hearty laugh and it will reverberate in my ears and through my memories forever.

He was the drum beat of my musical life for the last 23 years. We first jammed in his college apartment near the end of senior year, him on his first drum kit and me on my first guitar. I was there with him at the drum shop when he bought his second and (sadly) last drum kit, a sweet five-piece Sonor with a burgundy finish. He set up that kit in the basement of his new condo and offered to anyone with a musical inclination to join us as we jammed there. Here is where I must mention that his wife Laura should expect canonization for sainthood, putting up with that racket of ours all these years. (Or at least get fast-tracked to be beatified.)

Eventually with two college friends Diego and Okem, we formed The Modes, and we played our first show for our friends and families in the backyard of that condo. It was my first gig of any kind, and we both had the time of our lives. Laura even got us a cake.

Over the years, Diego moved on to medical school and Okem set off for California. But Tony and I kept those jam sessions going, and we formed a new band The Meritocracy. We wrote more songs, and the day we spent in the recording studio making the Lessons Learned EP was one of the best days of our lives. Here is the quintessential Tony, recording background vocals with bass guitar sweetheart Travis: