Needless to say, in typical Glenn fashion, he quickly became a legend among charter boat captains on the Oregon coast.

Most charter boat captains approached their jobs the way it had been done for generations. Glenn introduced new cutting edge technologies, new tactic and new techniques. Most charter boats would go out for a full day of fishing. Glenn would take a full party out in the morning and fish until everyone on his boat caught the legal limit of fish and then he would do the same thing with a second party in the afternoon. He ended up revolutionizing the charter boat industry along the Oregon coast.

Glenn brought the same passion and energy to all of his endeavors.

Glenn loved fishing. He loved hunting. He loved breeding, training and competing with his dogs. He loved playing table tennis, which is a whole another story. He enjoyed sharing these passions with other people and, over the years, developed a wide variety of friendships with people who shared similar interests.

Glenn was an interesting person because of the passion he brought to his endeavors.

Glenn was an admirable person because of the personal integrity and honesty he exhibited throughout his life.

As many of you know, Glenn worked for over twenty years in pharmaceutical sales. His career ended when he took on his last employer as a whistleblower, playing a key role in exposing illegal activities of one of the largest corporations in America. He was one of just seven key whistleblowers whose efforts resulted in his former employer paying 2.3 billion dollars in civil and criminal fines to the United States government.

My son, Paul Jr., told me that after learning of Glenn's death he googled Glenn's name and he found numerous news accounts of Glenn's activities as a whistleblower. He also noticed the comments to these stories, in which people expressed admiration for what Glenn had done, frequently using terms such as a "modern day hero".

A "modern day hero"? I don't think the term "modern day hero" is really adequate to convey what Glenn did.

What Glenn did took incredible courage, involved incredible sacrifice and much suffering, much stress and much anxiety. It required strength of character when people are trying to tear you down so that you will give up, and incredible tenacity to keep on going during times when there was little hope of success.

Having watched Glenn, I cannot say that the role of "modern day hero" is one that I would encourage anyone to pursue. It is a role that can only be thrust upon a person and a person can either rise to the occasion or let it pass by.

Glenn rose to the occasion and did the right thing. That is something for which he and those who loved him can claim immense pride.

There is, however, a much deeper story about Glenn's character that can be told.

I am a lawyer so I helped Glenn locate the right firm to represent him in litigation he undertook.

I remember on one occasion spending the better part of the day speaking with two lawyers from a firm that was considering taking on his case. A good part of the day was spent on the nitty-gritty details of his whistleblowing case, but another part of the day was spent listening to Glenn, in response to lawyer's questions, describe his long career in pharmaceutical sales.

I learned a lot about Glenn that day.

There are at least three things about pharmaceutical sales which make it a difficult field in which to maintain one's integrity.

First, it is highly regulated so there is a large and complex body of law one must follow. Second, it is highly competitive and third, it involves a great deal of money. These combine to create an environment where cutting corners, violating ethics and engaging in illegal activity become common place, indeed almost expected. Such acts can earn for the individual representative thousands of dollars and for companies that encourage it, literally billions of dollars.

Glenn, to a truly remarkable degree, in small ways and in large ways avoided that temptation. Moreover, he not only avoided wrongdoing, but he took a stand against it, whenever encountered, throughout his career, not just at the end.

As I listened to Glenn describe his career, I was impressed how Glenn, right down to the smallest detail, always followed the law and did the right thing. Glenn followed the law even when it was probably not that important.

An example involved a physician who wanted to take expired prescription drug samples with him on a mission trip to distribute in a third world country. That sounds reasonable enough and it is not something that the government is going to get bent out of shape about. However, due to the strict regulations of prescription samples, there was a right way and a wrong way to fulfill this good intention. Glenn knew the law and he made sure this particular doctor complied with it. He did not want his doctor to get into trouble with the FDA. Glenn's fidelity to the law, however, was ultimately based on his understanding that the rules were there to protect the patients and that is what motivated him.

One story Glenn told the lawyers particularly stands out in my mind.

Early in his career, Glenn was representing a particular prescription drug that was addictive and commonly abused as a street drug on the black market. Glenn's market area was one of the top rated sales areas in the United States for this particular drug. This meant that his sales exceeded what his company predicted they should be, given the demographics of the region. For a pharmaceutical rep, that is a good thing and that is how they are compensated.

Glenn became aware, however, that the reason for his high sales volume of the drug was that a large percentage of the prescriptions were ending up in the illegal sales market as street drugs. The evidence of this was found, in part, in the local drug rehab facilities in which many of the patients were addicted to the drug.

This situation would be easy for a representative to rationalize. It is not my fault that my drug is being abused and besides, there is nothing I can do about it. This is a problem for someone else to solve.

That is not the approach Glenn took.

He decided that something needed to be done. So he arranged a meeting of the local medical community, described the problem to the physicians with whom he worked and together, he worked with them to devise systems and protocols to make certain prescriptions were used for their intended purposes and did not supply the black market. After the plans were successfully implemented, two things happened: the local drug rehab centers had a steep decline in patients who were addicted to this drug and Glenn's sales of this particular drug tanked.

The local medical community gave Glenn an award for his efforts and he was written up in the paper. The story could have ended there, but it then took an interesting turn.

The doctors he served were so impressed, indeed astonished, that a pharmaceutical salesman would do what he did, they decided to reward him in a different way. So they started choosing the other drugs that Glenn represented over the competition and wrote prescription for them when appropriate. While his sales of the one drug went down, all of a sudden, Glenn's overall sales skyrocketed.

Glenn continued to work in pharmaceutical sales for the next twenty years or so. Every year throughout his entire career through several different companies, in different territories and with different medications, Glenn was ranked as one of the top ten or twenty salesman in the United States. Glenn had never struck me as the type of person who would make a great salesmen and his success honestly puzzled me at times. Looking back, I think his remarkable success was at least in part attributable to the niche he filled. He was a pharmaceutical representative with impeccable integrity who doctors could trust because Glenn would put the interests of their patients above his own.

That is a quality of his life that deserves our admiration.

Finally, I would like to talk about aspects of Glenn's life that made him a most fortunate man. Glenn was certainly fortunate to have his wife, Lori, who, nineteen years ago, made a vow to Glenn to love him in the good times and the bad times, in sickness and health, in wealth and in poverty until death do they part. She has fulfilled that vow, which is no small accomplishment for anyone in the world in which we live and for that, she deserves high praise. In doing so, all of us who have observed, have seen Lori give Glenn an extra measure of love, patience, loyalty and hope. For that, Glenn was most fortunate.

Glenn, like all of us had his strengths and his faults; his successes and his failures.

Ultimately, Glenn was a most fortunate man, however, because he got the most important thing right: he followed and put his faith in a loving, graceful and forgiving God. As a result, we know that we and Glenn can rely on those great promises of scripture.

John 3:16 - For God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son, so that everyone who believes him shall not perish but have eternal life.