Lori Webber HUTCHINSON

HUTCHINSON, Lori Webber May 24, 1952 - January 27, 2016 To a person, we are better for having known Lori Hutchinson. She embraced us all with her ebullient spirit of acceptance and love, coaxed up our better selves with her unselfish focus, and cared about us - strangers, co-workers, neighbors, friends... and most especially her children and husband. Her radiance made the world a better place and leaves it a better place. Lori was a poster girl for the wholesome, down-to-earth values of the place where she was born and raised, Des Moines, Iowa. She followed her family to California after graduating from the University of Iowa in 1974. That year she met her husband-to-be, Bill Hutchinson, and married him on July 17, 1976. Her daughter, Kate, came along in 1979, followed by son, Tucker, in 1985. In 1987 the family moved to Sonoma where Lori raised her children and made her home until the day she died. People-person that she was, Lori made her career in the field of Human Resources. She was the opening Director of Human Resources at Campton Place Hotel in San Francisco in 1982. She became Human Resources Director at Sonoma Mission Inn in 1986. She founded her own Human Resources business - Hutchinson Consulting - on her kitchen table with a Rolodex and a telephone in 1993, and built it over the ensuing decades into a thriving enterprise with global reach. A woman of optimism and courage, Lori detoured from her early career path to live for a year with Bill and toddler Katie on the Greek island of Skiathos in 1981-82. She accepted career challenges and made them work. She invented a business out of thin air. She battled a form of cancer which her doctor described as one of the most aggressive he had ever seen, without complaint or self pity. She served her community as an early Board Member of La Luz, her profession as a Board Member of the International Spa Association, her church as Moderator, and her world as a volunteer school builder in El Salvador. Her consummate skills were connecting people and building community. She made friends wherever she went and delighted in connecting those friends to one another. In this way she changed people's lives, inspired them, and enriched them. She also knitted caps for every baby born to a friend or a friend of a friend, collected sea shells and made them into stunning mirrors, and festooned her home with the feathers and bird nests that caught her collector's eye. Lori is survived by husband, Bill; daughter, Kate Leary, her husband, Owen, and their son, Jack Tucker; son, Tucker; mother, Ruth Webber; and brothers, George, Paul, and Steve. Her life will be remembered and mourned at a Celebration of Life on Saturday, February 13th, at 3:00 p.m., at Ramekins. In lieu of flowers you are invited to make a contribution in her name to Seeds of Learning, P.O. Box 2107, Sonoma, CA 95476.