In Loving Memory of Tim Trabon

“You know, when I told my 92-year-old mother that Jean-Michel Cousteau had come to see me, the first thing she said was, ‘I hope he’s not asking you to go back to the Amazon,’ said Tim Trabon, a round-faced, crew member of Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s Calypso team.

“Are you trying to bail out?” teased Jean-Michel Cousteau

“No, I said I’ll do it, so I’ll do it,” said Tim, mustering a feeble smile that suggested he wished he had listened to his mother.

Jean-Michel Cousteau and the Ocean Futures Society team have lost a dear friend, loyal supporter and all around very lovable team member with Jacques Cousteau, dating back from the early 80’s and later an important board member for Ocean Futures Society. Tim Trabon passed away on March 17, 2018.

An admirer of Jacques-Yves Cousteau as a teen and then a friend, almost like a brother to Jean-Michel for decades, Tim first boarded the Calypso as a guest in November 1980 for its voyage on the St Lawrence River and later was a valuable team member and financial director for Cousteau’s land team in the Amazon in 1982. From there Tim’s expedition days with the Cousteau team took him to the Sea of Cortez, the British West Indies, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Later Tim served as a board member to Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ocean Futures Society and was a gracious supporter in providing OFS with all of our printing needs for decades. Tim took over his father’s printing business and surpassed his father’s wildest dreams. And today, a half century later, the printing business not only endures, it thrives thanks to Tim’s hard work and determination.

In this loving tribute to Tim, Tim shares his words of wisdom while cruising the Amazon River with Jean-Michel and the OFS team back in 2007. “If I look at my entire history with my time with you (Jean-Michel), my message is to a young person would be to find a dream, what ever that dream is, make it an outrageous dream. Make it the kind of dream you would be embarrassed to share with someone because it may seem too over the top. Have a passion for and fail and fail and fail and fail but never give up.”

Tim will be dearly missed but his adventures with us all will remain very close to our hearts.

Tim's company, the Trabon Group, has been donating to Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ocean Futures Society since 1999 and Jean-Michel Cousteau's Family work in the form of graphic design and printing services from 1979 until the 1990s. In 2007, Trabon generously donated the printing and binding of Ocean Futures Society’s first limited edition, environmentally friendly, coffee table book America’s Underwater Treasures, which won gold medals at both the Benjamin Franklin Awards and the Independent Book Publisher Awards

Trabon leverages leading-edge technology to simplify complex business problems for companies in a variety of industries, from restaurants and retail to manufacturing and health care. Two Trabon divisions offer clients a host of service offerings.

The Trabon Strategic Technology Group provides IT consulting services and delivers innovative, tailored solutions, including custom applications, Web portals, mobile apps and enterprise software integration.

Trabon’s Restaurant Services Group provides intuitive Web-to-print systems to streamline the processes for organizing, creating, proofing, printing and distributing multiple versions of marketing deliverables for restaurant clients, such as menus and sales collateral, and centralize data management for websites, electronic menus, mobile apps and more.

For more information on the Trabon Group please visit here.

To read Tim's obituary please visit here.