Shawn at the Automotive Research and Development Centre (ARDC).
When Charlene Yates reminisces about her husband, she often thinks of a phrase he uttered so often during their 34 years of marriage.
“Come on, Char. It’s once in a lifetime,” he would say before whisking her away to explore the pyramids in Egypt, take a cruise, or play golf in Pebble Beach, California.
“He would go anywhere, any time,” Charlene fondly recalls.
The two met in high school. Charlene and Shawn would exchange shy hellos as they passed in the hall. It wasn’t until the two snuck into a Windsor wine festival that Shawn, the captain of the football team, worked up the courage to ask Charlene to dance.
“The rest was history,” she says.
The high school sweethearts married in 1983 and in 2017, watched their only son Bradley, 31, leave the house. They were starting to prepare for the next chapter of their lives. More traveling, more golfing and more time to spend together. But that all changed when Shawn was diagnosed with cancer in May 2017. Doctors were hopeful the active 57-year-old would respond well to treatment. Ten weeks later, his fight came to an end.
Shawn BASc ’82, MBA ’92 was instrumental in founding UWindsor’s co-op program with the FCA Automotive Research and Development Centre (ARDC). Since its inception in 1996, more than 500 students have been trained at ARDC, many of whom have become employees of the facility.
Tony Mancina, the ARDC’s director of Canadian engineering, says Shawn was an unrelenting mentor who left a long- lasting impact.
“He was an attentive mentor for all the students, taking the time to help them through all their concerns and ensuring that their adjustment was smooth,” says Mancina BASc ’91, MASc ’94. “He always championed their causes and cared deeply for all of the students.”
Charlene wishes to keep her husband’s memory and legacy alive by establishing a University of Windsor endowed scholarship in the UWindsor engineering and MBA grad’s name. The Shawn Yates Memorial Scholarship will support undergraduate students in the university’s Faculty of Engineering who followed a similar academic journey as Shawn and will echo the qualities of the students he mentored during his 34-year career at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA).
Egidio Mosca, a former student who later became friends with Shawn, remembers when his project was dragging halfway through his second co-op term and senior members wanted to pull the plug
“Shawn fought for me and kept the project in place,” says, Mosca BASc ’98, MASc ’03. “When it was all over and done, the project won some great awards and solid recognition all because Shawn believed in me when no one else did.”
“He was a mentor, brother, teacher and one of my best friends,” he adds. “I had the pleasure, honour and privilege of sharing 20 years with one of the best human beings.”
Shawn spent the beginning of his career with Chrysler Canada developing many world firsts, including fuel storage systems, fuel tank gauging systems, various innovative fuel filling systems and the world’s first certified, ultra-low emissions vehicle. He even worked with government and fuel supply groups to develop various road vehicle standards.
“Developing high-pressure, crash- worthy storage systems required significant expertise, special skills, cost consciousness and a willingness to innovate and embrace creativity – this was totally out-of-the-box thinking at its finest,” says Dr. John Mann, who retired as vice president of engineering - the division of Chrysler Canada where Shawn worked the majority of his career.
“These words describe Shawn Yates, the professional engineer, exceedingly well.”
Shawn later became operations manager responsible for logistics, operations and budget development and control and also managed the technical and program aspects of Chrysler Canada’s research and development tax credit program.
On top of it all, Shawn was a gifted speech writer, Mann says, “Shawn’s polish and professional approach to helping me with some of my own speeches always helped make me look a little better than I really was.”
“All this said, the measure of a man is not counted by his career or by his accomplishments. It is counted by his friends and family and by the people he touches through the way he lives his life, how he treats others, and by his values and ethics,” says Mann. “In these respects, Shawn Yates was simply an outstanding man.”