We will send an invite after you submit!
In memory of
Martin Sierra Goulart
May 20, 1986 - March 9, 2021
May 20, 1986 - Mar 9, 2021
-
-
-
-
-
-
In lieu of flowers
Please consider a gift to Valley Churches United or Cabrillo College Foundation.
Photo
Martin's obituary
“If it makes you happy
It can't be that bad
If it makes you happy
Then why the hell are you so sad.”
– Sheryl Crow
Martin was at peace with where he was in his life. He survived several more years than originally prognosed… in spite of two brain surgeries, radiation, and lots of chemo regimens. He had, as he so eloquently stated this time last year, “kicked the bell curve [for his prognosis with Stage 4 Glioblastoma Multiforme] in the ass”. Martin chose to fully live his life… engineering, building, creating “home” for himself and his family, hiking, bee keeping, spending quality time with friends and family, exercising his humor, taking care of business, making plans for the future, and helping others, always helping, until the very end. He never let his illness define him or stop him from working toward his dreams. He wanted to “live as if he had a future” and have “peace of mind”, no matter what life presented. He agreed with the statement, “plan as though you'll live forever, live as though you'll die tomorrow”.
A handful of years ago, Martin had The Seven Virtues of Bushido Samurai tattooed on his forearm: Integrity (GI), Respect (REI), Courage (YU), Honor (MEIYO), Compassion (JIN), Honesty (MAKOTO), and Loyalty (CHU). Above these he added one more symbol: love eternal. He chose the placement for his tattoo so that he would always be reminded of the core values he was committing his life to, and that ultimately these virtues would lead him to eternal love. Martin worked hard to follow his commitment to himself, and his successes are evident in the hearts of all those who knew and continue to love Martin.
Martin’s true nature was inherited, nurtured, and influenced by his family, friends, and colleagues. His strength, industriousness, perseverance, and tenacity came from his ancestors: maternal grandmother Caroline Lomier, paternal grandparents John and Mary Goulart, and great grandparents Emilia and Frank Martin (originally from the Portugal Azores).
His strong will, integrity, generosity of spirit, work ethic, confidence, can-do attitude, curiosity, smarts, helpfulness, and heart were nurtured by his parents: Mother Julie Glasser and Father Gary Goulart. Both recognized what a special person Martin was the moment he entered the world on May 20th, 1986. They loved him dearly! He was “the wind beneath their wings”.
His sense of duty, loyalty, compassion, patience, and role as protector and teacher he learned as a brother to Richard John (RJ) Isom and London Bullard.
His sense of compassion, honesty, respect, love of nature, and sense of humor and fun he practiced and shared with his friends (contemporaries old and young) John, Gigi, Mark, Kimberle, David & Chris, Prince & Barbara, Rose, Frank & Constance, Dani, Hillary, Tara, Sara, Rob, Patrick, Tom, Sean, Joe, Matt, Bruce, and Genoa to name a few.
There are so many who influenced and helped shape Martin’s life experience, contributed to his successes, and led Martin to his understanding and insight about himself and the world, teaching him that love was both fragile and sometimes hard, but always worth it.
His Education
Martin loved learning and enjoyed being a student at the following schools:
* Captain Cooper Elementary School, Big Sur – Where Martin started his education under the redwoods.
* Nature Academy, San Lorenzo Middle School, Felton – Where he learned math and science outdoors, formed life-long relationships, and learned more about himself.
* San Lorenzo High School, Felton – Where he became an athlete and joined the Junior Varsity Football team. He graduated with honors from the California Scholarship Federation.
* Cabrillo College, Aptos – Where he completed his Civil Engineering prerequisites and later returned to teach.
* San Jose State University, San Jose – Where he earned his BS degree in Civil Engineering and graduated magna cum laude.
His Vocations
For the last thirteen years, Martin was an integral part of the civil engineering industry in Santa Cruz County, working as a staff engineer with Bauldry Engineering and Pacific Crest Engineering, where he performed full-service geotechnical, chemical processing, and environmental engineering work. At Stalling Electrical, with his mentor and friend David Stalling’s guidance, Martin learned the building trade and earned his general contractor’s license, then developed his own company, Goulart Construction.
Martin always found opportunities to work with and help others in environments where he could learn and contribute his knowledge (Martin smarts) and skills in mechanics, construction, and engineering. This led Martin to a full-circle opportunity a few years ago, when he was invited to teach Computer Assisted Drafting (CAD) to Cabrillo College students. Professor Goulart… not too much older than the students he taught, loved to entertain them with his eccentric, Martin-style humor. “Blues Clues” was his favorite shtick, and he got a kick out saying he was teaching college with “half a brain”.
Life Outside Work (A.K.A. Hobbies and Interests)
Martin could often be found “wrenching” and “fixing” friends’, girlfriends’, and family’s vehicles, equipment, and homes. He loved a good challenge, especially when he could use his ‘brain and brawn’ to build and create. His biggest project was rebuilding his house in Lompico. This was a true ‘brain and brawn’ project; with the help of his father, brothers, and friends, he remedied a multitude of problems that most would have walked away from. He was able to turn a questionable ‘fixer upper’ into a beautiful home for himself and his family.
His last project was building a monumental wall with his brother, London. The ‘Great Wall of Martin’ took months to engineer and create, and LOTS of two-for-one breakfast sandwich coupons to complete, and it is a solid testament of his dedication to finishing projects and providing lasting support to his family… and to the hillside.
Martin also enjoyed time in nature with friends, fly fishing with Shannon, hiking with BrewTrails (a group his friend Rob created), surfing in Santa Cruz and even Mexico with childhood friend Constance Ohlinger. Starting at six years old, Martin joined his father on whale watching boats and read facts about marine life over the loudspeaker to the patrons. Sometimes the whales would come right up to the boat to hear more. When he was thirteen he earned his scuba diving license and took on work scrubbing boat hulls. In his later teenage years he went diving with his father during their travels together in Thailand.
More in the “brawn” category, he took on competitive boxing for a while… getting incredibly strong and agile. He enjoyed wakeboarding with the Stalling family, dirt biking, and weight lifting (he kept a bench vice in his family room at the ready for a quick work out). One of Martin's favorite workouts was chopping firewood, which allowed him to spend quality time with his dad, make new friends with Lompico David, and help out friends like Prince and Barbara.
He spent a lot of his time reading as well, with subjects including the wisdoms of the world, life, love, relationships, forgiveness, meditation, landlording, and everything anybody could want to know about structural concrete. His personal library was diverse and reflective of the complexity and depth of his thoughts.
When he received his diagnosis, he became motivated to explore and learn as much as he could from others’ experiences with terminal illnesses, spirituality, and the next realm. The words he read and heard from many seemed to bring him a deep sense of peace and calm grounding. Some of his favorites were Eckhart Tolle, Alan Watts, and Harbhajan Singh Khalsa (AKA Yogi Bhajan – https://youtu.be/qr7SVpNCJlk gives insight into Martin's mentation).
Martin became a beekeeper in the last four years with the support of his apiarian mentor and friend Joe. He was so interested in learning about and living more intimately with these fellow hard-workers that he innovated and built an indoor observation hive, which he resourcefully constructed from old windows and scraps of redwood. A couple of times he walked in to find the room filled with bees, which provided a buzz of excitement.
Studying the activities and relationships between the queen and her winged disciples, Martin gave the smallest handful of bees a chance to grow into a hive, and against all the odds he pulled it off. Martin had a way of beating the odds. He was a part of the Santa Cruz Bee Guild, was fearless with risky and advanced methods for raising queens and catching swarms, and was probably on a suspicious watch list for the amount of sugar he would pick up from Costco to keep his girls spoiled with home cooking. Annnnd… he never harvested the honey. For Martin, it was all about the journey.
As far as home cooking goes, Martin carried a strong appetite for it and loved it when others would cook for him. He loved his sweets (making his will-power that much more impressive when he avoided them later on during his anti-cancer food diets), and learned to bake his own sweet breads. He kept recipes for his favorite, banana, pumpkin and zucchini bread always within arm’s reach in the kitchen.
He enjoyed playing chess, poker, and a WIDE variety of music genres at top volume in his truck. The CD player however was reserved for one job and one job only… to rock out and sing with and/or torture passengers with his favorite band, Nickelback!
Besides music, Martin’s favorite tool for coping with the waves of life was humor, and he was happy to share it with any and all who would receive it. Some of Martin's favorites were “That's what she said”, “Your Mom…”, and “YOU'RE ____ (repeat your rival’s last word here)”. He loved to watch Dave Chappel, Key and Peele, and the White House Correspondents’ Dinner speeches with Barack Obama for their sense of humor and entertainment.
He got a kick out of watching Jordan Klepper at Trump rallies and Flat Earther debates. He enjoyed keeping up with politics ALMOST as much as he enjoyed his Costco forays and searching Craigslist for tools and heavy equipment (his excavator, he claimed, was about a ton too light). Martin also was keeping his finger on the pulse of the housing market, looking for his next investment property – somewhere flat to store his future army of tractors. He would never consider a house that was move-in ready though, he was always looking for something he could fix.
Martin spent 10 years as a Boy Scout earning the rank of Life Scout and enjoyed some incredible adventures with Troop 602. Some memorable adventures included making a 500 mile coastal bike ride from Santa Cruz to Knotts Berry Farm in Southern California not once, but TWICE!!! The second time he shared the ride with his brother, RJ. The trip was scary when the cars passed too close, and full of pranks and goofing off when they stopped to set up camp for the night.
The All-You-Can-Eat Abalone cook-offs were another big event. The scouts were involved with all aspects from diving for the abalone, beating it tender, battering, frying, serving, and of course tasting. Martin said besides being “Super Yum”, the event was successful enough to support the troop's activities for the rest of the year, including a trip into the wilderness and learning how to survive alone.
The truth is that Martin was never alone, then or now, nor are we. Our love for him was always there, always will be. He showed his love for us in very tangible ways; now we will feel and remember his love when we start the car he fixed, sleep in a room he renovated, read a book he shared, watch one of his laugh-out-loud comedies, figure out a good solution to a problem we thought unsolvable, lend a helping hand, hunt for four-leaf clovers, sit at the base of a redwood tree to ponder life, meditate to calm ourselves or find our peace of mind… and in so many other ways, he is with us always.
I CHOOSE
To live by choice, not by chance,
To be motivated, not manipulated,
To be useful, not used,
To make changes, not excuses,
To excel, not compete.
I choose self-esteem, not self-pity,
I choose to listen to my inner voice,
not to the random opinions of others.
I choose to do the things that you won’t
so I can continue to do the things you can’t.
-TheWisdomWarrior.com
“Bushido, this is truly what I try every day to live like” -Martin Goulart
Send to someone
Share this obituary with others
Want to stay updated?
Get notified when new photos, stories and other important updates are shared.
In lieu of flowers
Please consider a gift to
Valley Churches United or Cabrillo College Foundation.
$3,285.00
Raised by 17 people
Recent contributions
Recent contributions
In lieu of flowers
Please consider a gift to
Valley Churches United or Cabrillo College Foundation.
$3,285.00
Raised by 17 people
Recent contributions
Recent contributions
Share this memorial website
How you can help
Share with others
Donate in memory
Created with love by
Genoa (Genoa Fox).
