Chad B. Griffin

Chad Bennett Griffin was born in Decatur, Georgia on January 9, 1967. He is the second born of 3 brothers, Dirk being 2 years older and Brian 2 years younger than Chad. As a pre-school age boy, he, along with his mom and two brothers
moved to Miami, Florida where they lived with Chad's grandparents. His granddad passed away when Chad was 8 years old, So for the better part of his pre-adult life, Chad was raised by his mom and Grandma. He developed a very special relationship with his Grandma.

As a boy, he played all kinds of sports... soccer, tackle football, baseball and enjoyed water sports. He also had a paper route that he would wake up early and take care of. He's always been a hard worker, first to offer help & last to complain. He and his brothers are musically talented. Chad played trumpet, trombone, and French horn in the band and graduated from North Miami Senior High in 1985. He then went on to the University of Florida where he met his wife Wendy in January 1987, developed a passion for the Florida Gators, and earned a Bachelor's in Building Construction in 1990. His love for the Gators remained strong throughout his life. He used to wear a hard, orange, plastic gator head hat to all of the football games and bring a long, skinny horn he blew like a bugle to get the crowd going.

After college his first professional construction job was in wastewater & water treatment. You'd be amazed what people flush down their toilets! After Wendy finished grad school, in 1993, they married and lived in South Florida. There Chad left the wastewater construction industry & worked with a couple of commercial construction companies. They lived in Plantation for about 4 years and attended Plantation Community Church. When Wendy was 8 months pregnant with their oldest child, Ben, Chad took a transfer to Orlando to get out of the South Florida hustle & bustle. Ben was born in March, 1997 and within a year had went to work for Williams Company. Chad & Wendy started attending University Carillon United Methodist Church when Ben was 3 weeks old.

As the years passed, Chad and Wendy had 2 more boys, Sam (1999) & Max (2002), for a grand total of three sons. And for the duration of his career he continued to work for Williams Company. They became a second family to him. He built some interesting projects: at Sea World he was on the team that built the "Kraken" roller coaster, the Shark restaurant, and the Waterfront area. He built retail and schools too. He enjoyed the beach, traveling to the mountains, and doing anything that involved his boys: sports, outdoor activities, movies, video games, just being with them. He attended all of their events including a soccer game just 5 days before he died. He was a dedicated & loving husband, dad, brother, son & friend with a quiet confidence and a tremendous sense of humor.