Susan Lesley Bland was born in 1943 in Leeds, UK. At the age of 16, she decided to stop her studies to support her younger brother, who was suffering from leukaemia and who died shortly after. She then joined her sister in Switzerland and entered CERN in 1962 at the age of 18.
Susan pursued a career in administration, where she gradually rose in the hierarchy to become responsible for the secretariats of the Proton Synchrotron (PS) division. At selection boards, her insights into human nature were always much appreciated and her opinion was often decisive. She also made the first web version of the CERN administrative procedures and maintained its content for many years. Later, she was instrumental in archiving historically important PS documents.
Susan had two children, Sophie and Stéphanie, with her first husband, Serge Neboux, and their well-being was her main concern. She later met systems engineer Robert Cailliau, who would become her second husband. With him, she began a life punctuated by travels and projects, but above all she supported him in the journey of developing the web in the early 1990s.
In 2005, Susan retired after 43 years – constituting one of the longest ever careers at CERN. In her retirement, she became even more passionate about her hobby of genealogical research and participated actively in many community forums. Through this research, she was able to list no fewer than 60 000 people linked to her family.
Susan remained a pillar to us all until the end. We will miss her dearly.
Her family