Remembering Brian Agensky

Brian could easily have been a lawyer. I told him precisely that and he replied that he had thought about it early on, but decided he would rather have a personal life. Good point. Brian loved playing devil’s advocate and would grill us on every issue. Even where common sense and fair play would lead most people to take a certain side or course of action, he would show you how wrong you could be in making such assumptions. He would often leave us tongue-tied and stumped to rebut his arguments. I wish I could come up with a specific example to illustrate this. Whenever we could come up with a reasonably good defense to his arguments, then we felt SO victorious like we won a medal at the Olympics! Just to be able to evenly match his superb logic was a feat in itself. He loved to tell the story about how he single-handedly thwarted a lawyer during a hearing regarding the Seaton Land Exchange deal. He was testifying as an expert witness as the one responsible for preparing and

I first met Brian when I started working for the former Ontario Realty Corporation (now Infrastructure Ontario) in April 2007. Of course, when I was first introduced to him, he was loudly talking on the phone and thoroughly engaged in his conversation. Back then, we each had tall cubicle walls, so hardly any natural light came through the office and it was difficult to see if people were at their desks or not unless you went right into their cubicle space. Brian sat next to a window and I sat adjacent to his cubicle, but it felt like I was in a separate room away from him...except for the fact that I could hear his voice quite distinctly, especially when he was on the phone, which was many times throughout the day. My manager at the time spoke very well of him, describing him as being "full of life". It didn't take long before I understood what he meant. He had a charismatic type of personality with a dramatic flair. He had a great voice that could easily be on the

Brian Lewis Agensky, P. Eng., 1967-2012 The following was posted at Brian's workplace upon notice of his passing: Brian joined the former Ontario Realty Corporation (ORC) in 2002 as an Environmental Specialist and continued on at Ontario Infrastructure and Lands Corporation (IO). Brian had a very lively personality who enjoyed the spotlight and provided entertainment using his witty and sarcastic sense of humour. He once proudly displayed to his colleagues a video of his television appearance as one of the judges on the show called “Style By Jury”. You always knew when Brian was in the room. He had a charismatic presence and a voice that carried above others, but you wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of an argument with him. As much as he was known for his entertaining personality, he could also fiercely play devil’s advocate on any issue using his sharp logic and reason. He handily defended ORC’s position in a legal dispute over the Seaton Land Exchange deal in a manner