04/17/2026
I was recently asked why we named our vineyard Rainmaker…you may know that some native Americans in the western USA would call on their spiritual leaders to make it rain whenever it was most needed, and if it did rain after whatever ritual, the Rainmaker was celebrated and rewarded. In modern times entities of all types trying to create new opportunities, achieve organizational goals and overcome seemingly overwhelming obstacles look for that change agent and when they succeed they are sometimes known as Rainmakers.
I have spent a 45 year career building new businesses, in the high tech, social and educational realms, with new strategic and organizational models that I am proud to say have been widely emulated and more than once I’ve been called a “Rainmaker”.
While my career was highly satisfying, socially constructive and sufficiently ruminative and has allowed me to see the whole world and meet and collaborate with extraordinary people, it had become increasingly stressful and taxing as I’d taken on more responsibility for the lives of so many employees not to mention beneficiaries of the services and products we developed and offered.
I’ve tried to retire on several occasions and had opportunities too exciting to turn down draw me back into the arena. Of course I’ve also had Rainmaker Farms, while idyllic it is a LOT of work and a significant business and operational challenge that we, Patti and I, have enjoyed and worked at for 13+ years. We’ve carved from the surrounding forests what many have said is the most beautiful European hillside style vineyard anywhere in at least SW Washington and maybe beyond. It’s been a labor of love but growing & harvesting 50 tons of grapes is still labor and a major capital mgmt operation, it’s not retirement it’s a big job.
So it is now time to finally retire, for real and totally this time. We have sold our home, Rainmaker Farms and Vineyard lock, stock and barrel(s) (literally! All 3!) The new residents and proprietors are former buyers of our grapes and makers of fine wines, they are a beautiful young couple who had their first daughter (and I am told siblings will follow!) in November. They will fill this big house with love over many years to come and he will make much more of this place, building his own winery, and while still serving the most elite of the winemakers harvesting from Rainmaker the new resident proprietors will create estate wines that you will want to savor for many years to come.
We have purchased a home in Playa Cerritos in B.C.S. MX and are well into the process of acquiring a second home in the very beautiful Washington community of Kalama off of I-5 a bit north of Portland, OR and Vancouver, WA with plans to split our time between the two.
We are going to be nostalgic about this last chapter living on the vineyard, we will miss it mightily in fact. But the new WA place has a 2 acre pasture with fruit trees so there will still be canning, gardening and outdoor adventures close to home.
We are ecstatic. Lucky beyond measure. We will live on a healthy, if not at all extravagant fixed income. The new job is to find joy, spread it as widely as possible, spend as much time with those we love and enjoy those new and old friends we meet from here forward.
No longer a Rainmaker but a seeker of new sunsets who will no longer make things happen but instead revel in the most wonderful creations of nature and other people.y
