Mitch Carey (43 years), Marketing & Communications Director of both Sonic Distribution Ltd and sE Electronics International, died unexpectedly in the early hours of Wednesday 18th August 2010 from suspected blood poisoning (at the time of going to press his cause of death is still unconfirmed). He leaves behind him a wife and 2 young children.
Mitch joined Sonic Distribution as an equal shareholder and Director, alongside Phil Smith and James Ishmaev-Young, in 2004; and along with Siwei Zou the three are also partners in sE. In his time in these roles he has been the creative inspiration of Sonic and sE’s marketing, taking ideas generated by the team and turning them into reality, as well as helping to negotiate some of the key manufacturing partnerships including that with Rupert Neve Designs, a collaboration which has already seen the critically acclaimed RNR1, a product which Mitch led to market.
His artwork, branding, and products in which he has had a hand, like the global phenomenon the Reflexion Filter, have formed the face of one of the industry’s most recent brand success stories in the year that sE Electronics celebrates the brand’s 10th anniversary. The relationships he built, both within the companies he directed, and with customers, suppliers, and brand endorsees, are something that will help take the business through the next 10 years and many more to come.
A tribute from his workmates and friends
There are no words to adequately describe the loss of such a truly beautiful man from the lives of the people he touched so deeply; the outpouring of shock and grief from those that know Mitch, from casual acquaintances to close friends and his family, is a measure of how universally loved he is. Words so often used to describe people in life fall far, far from the mark when talking about Mitch. Words and phrases like ‘irreplaceable’, ‘magnificent’ (he’d have choked on that one!), ‘one in a million’; the list is endless yet none of them do him justice, as so many of us have found, whilst trying to express what he meant to us.
He has quite simply been of incalculable influence in so many ways and to so many people’s lives; the impossible sadness his leaving us brings, is not something you ‘get over’ with time.
But he leaves behind him of course not only the grief of many, but more funny stories, more perfect thoughts, more crazy ideas and the bravery to follow them through, than anyone any of us have ever known.
His legacy in work is to have played a pivotal role as the companies’ Marketing & Communications Director, in developing both Sonic Distribution along with his partners Phil and James, and sE Electronics with the addition of Siwei Zou. He spoke very recently about how proud he was, after 8 years of many good times, some very bad times, and a lot of hard work, of the family of people who make up our team, and how we have finally achieved together the things we set out to do… now we could grow forward into an unknown but exciting future with real strength, a lot of laughs and with many lessons learned. The work family he helped to create has him to thank for the strength of bonding between us, and that is something that we will rely on more than ever now in taking things to what may be a very different future, but one he’d still be proud of.
Mitch also leaves behind him his close family; our hearts go out to his wife Debs, his two sons who he loved more than life itself, Dylan and Euan, his mother Paulene and father Colin, and his two brothers, Justin and Nathan – as a husband, father, son and brother, I cannot imagine anyone could be more missed when his life was so big, and his love so openly worn and given.
Perhaps his biggest legacy of all though lays in the thought, so often just a platitude but so true in this case, that he lives on in those that knew him, because, quite apart from never being able to forget his empathy and his antics, he simply makes you want to be a better person.
We miss you Mitch
