August 6, 1956 - July 11, 2024
Ed was a devoted son, loyal brother, and steadfast friend to many. An accomplished engineer, he spent his entire 25-plus year career at IBM San Jose, earning numerous awards. He was also a pioneering LGBT leader at work and in the community.
Ed was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, to Edgar Harris McCanless, a decorated World War II veteran, and Alice Claire (Altick) McCanless. He grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, and then followed his older brother, Henry Richard McCanless, to Georgia Tech. Both Ed and Harry were gay and childless. Ed survived both his parents and his brother.
Ed was an accomplished lifelong learner who graduated in 1978 with honors and a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering. He was sponsored by IBM and graduated in 1990 with a master's degree in manufacturing systems from Stanford University. Ed was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa national honor society.
Ed was also a talented athlete. He started swimming in grade school and continued on through college and ultimately competed in the 1994 Gay Games in New York. Ed was known for his "life-guard" voice. He was also an avid cyclist and long-term supporter of the AIDS/LifeCycle. He once rode his bike from Campbell to Yosemite.
An avid Yosemite advocate and camper, Ed was happiest in Yosemite National Park. He shared this joy with countless friends, including biannual trips to Yosemite Valley with the Baylands and San Francisco FrontRunners clubs. Close friends joined Ed for decades in hiking the loop of High Sierra Camps in the Tuolumne high country.
One of Ed's proudest accomplishments was his advocacy for gay and lesbian employees at IBM. In the early 1990s, Ed was part of the underground network of gay and lesbian employees pushing for domestic partner benefits. In 1995, Ed joined the IBM Gay/Lesbian Task Force with IBM's new diversity initiatives. As a result of this work, IBM created diversity network groups, initiated mandatory diversity training for all managers in the United States, provided domestic partner benefits to gay/lesbian employees, and included sexual orientation and gender identity or expression in its global equal opportunity policy. As a top 10 Fortune 500 company, IBM's leadership in these achievements helped drive momentum across industries and employers to broadly offer domestic partner benefits and support LGBT employees long before the legalization of same-sex marriage in the U.S.
As president of the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Awareness Program, he was instrumental in bringing conversation, violence prevention, and understanding of lesbian and gay people's experience with secondary and college students in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties in the 1980s-1990s. This groundbreaking work paved the way for today's culture of acceptance, one conversation at a time. Ed also volunteered at the Billy DeFrank LGBTQ Community Center in San Jose.
Plagued by severe back injuries, Ed left his career early due to permanent disability in 2004. Following two decades of severe back issues, Ed's body was transformed from a competitive athlete into one with severe handicaps and mobility limitations. In 2023, health complications compelled him to move into assisted living.
Ed was a fan of many local cultural organizations, including Shakespeare Santa Cruz, San Jose Ballet, Smuin Ballet, and his summer favorite, the Mountain Play on Mount Tamalpais.
Please direct donations in memory of Ed to one of his favorite charities:
● The Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center, San Jose.
We will gather to celebrate his life in Campbell on Saturday, August 17. Contact Willow Glen Funeral Home for details.
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