Sam Blackman

Sam Blackman, founder of Elemental Technologies and one of the brightest figures in Portland's resurgent tech scene, died suddenly over the weekend from an apparent heart attack. He was 41. A Portland native who grew up lifeguarding at the city's pools, Blackman led Elemental from a tiny startup into one of the city's major employers. The company sold to Amazon in 2015 for $296 million, but Blackman remained chief executive following the deal. After graduating from Brown University and earning a master's degree at the University of California at Berkeley, Blackman went to work as an engineer for Pixelworks, then a promising video technology startup. Blackman left in 2006 with colleagues to start Elemental, which capitalized on surging demand for streaming video over the internet. Elemental's software used standard computers to adapt video streams for transmission online. Many of the world's top broadcasters use Elemental technology, among them ABC, the BBC, ESPN, HBO and PBS. Blackman's father was Marc David Blackman, one of Portland's most prominent defense attorneys. He died in January 2014. He is survived by his wife, Adriane, a schoolteacher, and two sons in elementary school.