Sam Blackman, one of the brightest figures in Portland's resurgent tech scene and a powerful voice for civic engagement and education, died suddenly over the weekend. He was 41.

The Portland native, who grew up lifeguarding at a public pool, leaves a young family and a rapidly growing business that helped transform Oregon's Silicon Forest. He led Elemental Technologies from tiny startup to one of the city's major employers before selling it to Amazon in 2015 for $296 million. He stayed on as CEO.

Now known as AWS Elemental, the company pioneered software for transmitting video over the internet. If you stream ESPN or HBO on your smartphone, you're using technology Elemental built.

"AWS Elemental has lost a passionate, visionary and humble leader and the world has lost an inspiring human being dedicated to community," the company said in a written statement. "Sam's spirit will always be at the core of what we do. Sam loved his work, but his greatest love was for his wife and children. Our thoughts are with his family and all those he touched on his journey."

The company attributed Blackman's death to sudden cardiac arrest. It had no statement on near-term leadership plans. Services are pending.

An engineer with an analytical mind and abiding love for his hometown, Blackman hoped Elemental could provide a broader civic boost. He led efforts by his company and the larger tech community to address housing, education, the environment and hunger.

"Sam's the kind of guy you want your kids to grow up to be -- not just a gifted engineer but (someone who) cares so passionately about the community as well," said veteran Oregon tech executive Allen Alley, who hired Blackman out of graduate school to work at onetime Tualatin tech company Pixelworks.

Just last week, Elemental moved into a spacious new headquarters at the south end of Broadway, where it now employs more than 400 people. Blackman hoped Amazon's Portland outpost would eventually grow into a major economic engine for the region.

"One of my big goals for the company is to prove that Portland is a good place to grow and invest for the long term," Blackman said Thursday.

Word of Blackman's death left Elemental employees devastated and numb. Tributes flowed in Monday from Oregon's business leaders to its political elite. The news brought an outpouring of grief from Portland's tech community on social media.

"He was really humble but at the same time he was willing to say: This is something I care about, and because I care about it I am going to do it," said Luke Kanies, founder of Portland's other big young technology company, Puppet.

Blackman embodied Oregon tech's evolution from a hardware-focused economy into one with a broader software base, according to Kanies. He said Blackman had the skills and insight to make a shift a lot of other tech companies didn't manage.

"The thing that stood out to me was Sam cared deeply about everything," Kanies said. "He cared about his company, his city and his family."

Former Elemental board member Kevin O'Hara said Blackman built a company of smart people with open minds.

"He didn't always do what you said, but he listened. And if he chose to go in a different direction he would always call," O'Hara said. "He listened, and he did what he thought was right. That's all you can ask from a CEO."

When Elemental moved to its prior office at the north end of Broadway, Blackman said he chose it because was one of the few places in the city that allowed large signs to advertise a business. Blackman said he wanted his company to be highly visible in the city and to visitors. Elemental brought along those signs when it moved to its new offices last week, tucking them into a large new gathering space in the center of the building.

"He could have been successful in any community, in any city, and he chose to come home," said Dan Lavey, a friend of Blackman's late father and owner of Gallatin Public Affairs. "I think building a business in Portland was as important to him as just building a business."

Gov. Kate Brown praised Blackman as a "beacon of Oregon's tech community."

"As CEO of Elemental and later with Amazon, he led the company to grow financially while engaging civically on issues like education, hunger, and the environment," Brown said in a statement. "Sam's approach made Oregonians stronger while helping build the economy that they rely on."

Relentlessly positive, Blackman greeted visitors with a big, swooping handshake and a goofy grin. Last week, at a gathering for reporters at Elemental's brand-new headquarters, he arrived in a checked shirt, shorts and sandals.

Yet Blackman was also quietly thoughtful and could speak authoritatively on serious issues, from obscure federal land policy to Oregon's public pension system. And even as the company grew, he was diligent about maintaining personal ties and observing social courtesies.

"No matter how busy he was, and we all knew he was busy, if I were to send him an email or leave him a voicemail, I would hear back from him within an hour," said Linda Weston, longtime director of the Oregon Entrepreneurs Networks.

As a startup, Elemental donated shares to a philanthropic organization called the Entrepreneurs Foundation of the Northwest. That stock was worth roughly $300,000 when Elemental sold to Amazon, and the proceeds created the Elemental Community Investment Fund, part of the Oregon Community Foundation.

"We are fully aware that long-term investments made by the State of Oregon and City of Portland made Elemental possible. Now we want to make every effort possible to give back with innovative programs that, in turn, offer longer-term support for non-profits," Blackman said last year.

Elemental also staged charity runs at industry events to raise money, known as 4K4Charity -- the name and unusual 4-kilometer distance played on the 4K, ultra-high-definition video standard.

In 2015, Elemental began holding the runs annually in Portland, too. The local events benefitted Rosemary Anderson High School, for students who have been expelled from or dropped out of high school. The next Portland run is Oct. 12 at Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

Portland School Board member Amy Kohnstamm, who worked closely with Blackman on last year's school construction bond campaign, remembered him as a devoted advocate for education and for creating opportunities for girls and young people of color.

"When he talked and when he was passionate about something people listened, and so he got a lot of support from the tech industry," Kohnstamm said. "He also just really believed that a strong school system was key to a healthy city."

In a 2011 piece for The Oregonian, Blackman recalled growing up in a home without computers.

"Despite my mother's strong preference that I grow up to become a writer, she couldn't ignore the fact that whenever we went to OMSI, I was strongly drawn to the electronics section," Blackman wrote. Blackman's neighbor, Jack Dudman, had mentored Steve Jobs at Reed College. The Dudman family helped nurture Blackman's budding interest by allowing him to work on Apple computers given to them by Jobs.

After graduating from Brown University and earning a master's degree at the University of California at Berkeley, Blackman went to work as an engineer for Pixelworks, then a promising video technology startup.

Blackman left in 2006 with colleagues to start Elemental, which capitalized on the surging demand for streaming video over the internet.

At Elemental, he recruited a committed crew of technologists who shared his vision for the company and community. They built software that used standard computers to adapt online video streams for TVs, laptops, smartphones and tablets. Its clients include many of the largest media and entertainment companies, including ABC, BBC, Comcast, Major League Baseball, PBS and Sky.

An enthusiastic runner and ultimate disc player, Blackman typically biked to Elemental's downtown office from his home in Northwest Portland, where he lived with his wife, Adriane, a Portland schoolteacher, and two grade-school aged sons.

Last week, as Elemental was moving into its new building, Blackman took a rare day off to join the family observing the solar eclipse in the Willamette Valley. He accompanied the boys to their weekly swim lessons in the winter and coached their basketball team. His father was Marc David Blackman, one of Portland's most prominent defense attorneys, who died in January 2014.

In a statement asking for privacy, Blackman's family remembered him as someone who cherished his family, company and city.

"He was a passionate advocate for community service who rallied so many towards a greater good for the environment, hunger, education and inclusion," the family wrote. "We are thankful to all those who have shared their thoughts and prayers for Sam."

At Elemental, Blackman sought to build a different type of tech business. The company didn't have a game room, a foosball table or a kegerator. Blackman said they all distracted from the work.

"For me, the office is not what the business is about," Blackman said last week. "Our culture has been around being here because you love the work, not because you love the workspace."

After selling to Amazon last year, Blackman said he hoped the deal would be a draw to other tech companies and investors, bringing new opportunities to the city.

"This one, I hope, is something that draws a lot of eyes to what Portland engineers and Portland entrepreneurs can build," Blackman said in 2015. "The teams here are building such great technologies. I really think this is just the beginning."

This article has been updated with additional comment.

-- Mike Rogoway; twitter: @rogoway; 503-294-7699