America has lost one of its greatest innovators.

As I opened my Yahoo email account, I saw the heading, “Steve Jobs, Apple founder dies at 56.” In the past few years, there have been passing of many iconic media figures whom I’ve grown up with and known: Michael Jackson, Ted Kennedy, and Peter Jennings to name a few, but none of these people have impacted me or my life as Steve Jobs.

I remember a decade ago when I had gotten a job at a newly developed branch of a company that specialized in Oil Field Services. Although the company had been a major player in the industry, they wanted to capitalized on the height and the hype of what was then known as the “Tech Boom”; hence, wanted to branch out to create a division that specialized in Technology: cell phone chips, semiconductor units, data storage, and all the usual hodgepodge of technical paraphernalia.

And although I’d heard of the name Steve Jobs before, mainly through newspaper articles and made for TV movie of the week, I didn’t realized the enormity of his inventions, and the impact that he has had on technology and ultimately in the society. Steve Jobs was one of the greatest innovators, an industry leader, and one that everyone was watching often to replicate and imitate, and even throughout his tumultuous career, he was always in the spotlight and never seized to shock and amazed us with his ideas and most importantly, his showmanship.

It is often said that a large part of Apple’s success depended upon Steve Jobs’ persona and charisma, and that Jobs made Apple great by ignoring profit and focusing on his customers. But for me, he embodied the great spirit of America and Americans, a true pioneering spirit, the enormous amount of creativity and passion, and the indomitable can-do attitude and optimism that allows people to dream and often achieve the impossible.

It is this spirit that I believe and have admired in Americans … and in Mr. Jobs, and I like to remember him as one of the most influential and inspirational figures of our generation.

His commencement speech at Stanford in 2005