About the time I started thinking about how to bring all the strands of my work together in a new website, I ran into Susan Prior. She said, “You know, my husband and I have a small firm that builds websites.”
Susan and I met through her work at Compassion & Choices when I was just starting to organize PDX Death Café in 2013. She’d been on staff since 2007, first as national events manager and later, philanthropy officer. She and her husband Brad had moved to Oregon in 1994, the year we became the first state in the nation to legalize medical aid in dying. As the parent of two young children she started organizing houseparties to build greater support and understanding for death with dignity.
In the meantime her husband Brad was building community in the tech sector. A filmmaker and director, he started convening other tech leaders in 1994 for an event called WebVisions. Alongside his web, film, and print work. Brad produced WebVisions for 17 years, taking it global to cities including Berlin, Barcelona, and London.
With their children grown and gone from Oregon, Susan recognized herself as being at an age of greater intentionality – “being able to pick and choose, thinking about what I do and how I do it,” she told me.
“So many of us are in that same creative act of reinvention, post pandemic.”
Susan Prior
Susan related to what I shared about the evolution of my work and offered to recruit Brad to bring it to life digitally. During the year I’ve been working on my new site with Hot Pepper Studios, Susan made a reinvention move of her own, accepting the post of Development Director at Hopewell House, an organization near to my heart.
Hopewell House, beloved by hundreds of families and volunteers during its 33 years as a residential hospice, reopened in January 2023 under a reinvented organizational model (read more in my post on Hopewell House). Susan and I met there recently to reflect on the growing community of compassionate people dedicated to supporting dying people and their families.
Susan’s first act at Hopewell House was to instigate a Tea and Tour program. “People need to come, be here, feel it, get inspired,” Susan says. “This is a place where so many people share their time and talent.” (Contact Susan for more information!)
I hope the website Susan and Brad helped create for my work is also a place where people can feel inspired. I’m grateful to both of them and their team at Hot Pepper Studios.
Photo courtesy of Susan Prior.