Liam Rattray was a lab rat and a protester.
He was passionate and ambitious.
He wanted to change the world and make it a better place, a cliché, his parents acknowledged, but that was his goal. Rattray worked with sustainable, local, urban organic farms and knew that was how he could help change people’s lives.
He lived in a school bus, fueled by biodiesel. It was parked at The Big House on Ponce de Leon Avenue.
Rattray had just graduated with a degree in public policy from Georgia Tech. Born in London, he became an American citizen three months ago.
Monday night he died after being hit by a car while riding his motorcycle on Moreland Avenue in the Little 5 Points neighborhood.
“He never sat still; he always had to be out there,” Linda Rattray said of her eldest child.
Rattray always was interested in science, but it wasn’t until he set up a once-a-month science lab program at Fernbank during his senior year of high school that he became hooked on biology, horticulture and community science, according to his father, Ian Rattray. He took that interest to Georgia Tech but then switched to major in public policy.
“We had a lot of conversations with him, about all of the wrongs in the world,” Ian Rattray said. “He was very political and very, very active politically and realized that moving over to public policy, he could really make a difference.”
At first, he joined every single “protest club” at Georgia Tech, Ian Rattray said. He also set up a farmers’ market at the school, growing food on campus, and then managed the East Atlanta Farmers’ Market for a summer.
Rattray graduated from Georgia Tech Summa Cum Laude and had a number of accolades, including outstanding undergraduate researcher from the Ivan Allen College and outstanding student from the school of public policy.
He was the legislative aid for Georgia Organics and just received a $50,000 grant for a renewable-energy project at Truly Living Well, an Atlanta community garden with organic fruits and vegetables. The project was borne out of work at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.
"A lot of his work focused heavily on sustainability," said Christopher Carter, who met Rattray 11 years ago during a robotics competition. "He always dreamed very big, and he wasn't afraid to pursue those dreams."
He also started a company and a blog called Arkfab, which focused on growing local, sustainable mushroom farms.
“That was going to become his career: public policy and urban farming and education,” Ian Rattray said.
Rattray was near the Vortex restaurant around 9:40 p.m. Monday night when a car hit his motorcycle, according to the Atlanta police.
He was thrown from the bike and hit by a vehicle that was going southbound. Rattray was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, where he later died.
Atlanta police have arrested Darrin Murphy, 42, who was driving the car that struck the back of the motorcycle. He has been charged with first degree homicide, following too closely and DUI.
Ian and Linda Rattray said friends filled their home Monday night as well as Tuesday. Grief comes in waves, as they expected.
“People think it’s no big deal to drink and get into a car, but it can ruin people’s lives,” Linda Rattray said. “There was a reason why someone was killed – because of someone’s stupidity and lack of concern for someone else.”
Liam Rattray and his 18-year-old sister, Jennifer, are the children of immigrants. Ian Rattray came from a working-class family in the United Kingdom. They lived in state housing, he said.
The family first moved to Dallas, then Houston, then Atlanta when a headhunter recruited Ian Rattray, an architect.
“It was the classic American Dream, having a better life for the kids,” Ian Rattray said.
Linda Rattray said her son was proud to become a U.S. citizen three months ago.
“He knew he could make more changes as a citizen,” she said. “He had so much to live for, so much he wanted to do.”
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