William Hunter Dunn

Known as "Bill" to all who knew him, William Dunn passed peacefully in his home in Santa Cruz, California on December 3, 2023. He died in the same house he had lived in with his family since 1970. He was 92.Bill is survived by his wife, Joan Everett Dunn, to whom he was married for 59 years, and his three children: Susan Dunn Marucci, Liz Dunn Carroll, and W. Hunter Dunn, Jr.Bill was born on March 18, 1931, in Washington, D.C., where both his parents practiced medicine and hoped that one day their child would become the third "Dr. Dunn" in the family. Their wish was fulfilled when Bill's younger brother, John, graduated from medical school.Bill knew he was not meant to follow in his parents' footsteps, but he was determined to find out what he was meant for when he left home to attend college. At Princeton University, he discovered a love for geology while earning a degree in engineering and developing one of his lifelong hobbies: playing guitar and singing off-color sailor songs and limericks.Shortly after college, Bill packed up his guitar and headed to the Coast Guard's Officer Candidate School (OCS), followed by two years of service in Galveston, Texas, earning the rank Lieutenant JG, despite his accidental sinking of a shrimp boat while manning the helm during an overnight shift in heavy fog.After the Coast Guard, Bill landed a job as a junior engineer at Boeing in Seattle. After some uninspiring months behind a drafting table, Bill made the fateful decision to switch careers, and headed south to study the law.Bill graduated from Stanford Law School in 1958, and opened his own practice in Campbell and then San Jose. He developed an expertise in escrow law and carved out a niche practice in this area, eventually self-publishing a book on escrow law in the early 1980s which he promoted through weekend seminars throughout California. For over five decades of his working career, Bill commuted from Santa Cruz to his law office "over the hill."Every other day after work, Bill jogged about 5 miles. He ran the very first wharf-to-wharf race in Santa Cruz and continued running it every year until his knee pain prompted him to look for other ways to exercise.It was not long before he co-founded a hiking club with a few friends.Its weekly excursions, filled with laughter and storytelling, were a weekend highlight for Bill. He would sometimes return home and tell his family about some beautiful or eventful moment on the hike, like the time he spotted a wild boar roaming the hills of Wilder Ranch.A private memorial is planned for sometime in 2024.