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Monday, June 26, 2006

Ex-Microsoft exec killed in plane crash
UW grad led work on Office software program

P-I STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES

BIG TIMBER, Mont. -- A venture capitalist who was a former Microsoft executive and his pilot died when their single-engine plane crashed and burned shortly after takeoff from the airport here, a coroner said Sunday.

Killed in the Saturday afternoon crash were Jeffery M. Harbers, 54, who had homes in Big Timber and Medina, and pilot Jason Barton, 31, of Yukon, Okla.

Harbers, an engineering graduate of the University of Washington, led engineering and development work on the Office software program. Friend and former Microsoft co-worker Jeff Raikes said Harbers was considered the leader who shaped the Office development team during the 1980s.

"He had an incredibly important role in creating the (Office) product line that's used by 450 million people today," Raikes said. Harbers also served as director of Microsoft applications development and as general manager of the data access business unit.

Earlier, Harbers worked at a research center in Antarctica and on the Alaska oil pipeline. He leaves behind a wife and two children.

He left Microsoft in the early 1990s and at the time of the crash owned a ranch near Big Timber and also maintained a home at Whistler, B.C., Raikes said. He devoted time to environmental causes, particularly land conservation.

The aircraft was registered to Harbers' venture capital firm, JMH Capital LLC in Medina, according to a Federal Aviation Administration database.

The single-engine turboprop aircraft crashed about 2:20 p.m. Saturday.

Sweet Grass County Coroner Joseph Hansen said the plane and the victims were badly burned.

The bodies were taken to Billings to be autopsied.

The plane crashed on a private pasture about a mile east of the south-central Montana airport, sheriff's spokeswoman Kerry O'Connell said. The wreckage was spread over an area 300 to 400 yards long and 150 to 200 yards wide, she estimated.

Investigators from the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board arrived at the crash site early Sunday.

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