Meet Our Newest Members!

Our most recent members, Terri and Laura, are both graduates of WCC's first Explorer University. Terri, who had been an explorer at WCC in 2021, stayed in contact, returned for Explorer U, and became a full member after completing the minimum 30 days. Laura, a California native, had also tested the Cohousing water and couldn't wait to dive in.
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Laura
Hello, I'm Laura, a 60-year old divorced woman. I retired early after a 33-year career with AT&T. I moved to Cotati CA in 2016 after living in Durango CO and Alameda CA. I became interested in co-housing after hearing about it from one of my meditation buddies when I lived in Alameda. I’ve toured many of the communities in the East Bay and North Bay and I’m very interested in moving to Washington Commons. I subletted at a co-housing community last year, for 2.5 months, in order to see if I enjoyed living in community, and I loved it. It just solidified how co-housing is the right path for me. I had been on the waitlist for two communities, but I have found that once people move into co-housing they never leave 😊. I had a chance to be on the common house committee when I was subletting, and I’ve stayed on the committee after I left, so I bring that experience to Washington Commons.
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My interests are movies, books, and meditation and I would love to talk to you about any of those things (I can talk about movies for hours).  I’m an extrovert and I look forward to getting to know my future neighbors and doing the work to create our community connections before we all move in together.

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​Terri (Teresa) 
"I was born in Detroit, raised in the (all white) suburbs, and escaped to Seattle as soon as I finished my undergraduate degree. I stayed for 15 years working in research labs at the University of Washington and co-parented a son who is all grown up now and settled in the Seattle area. I moved with my partner to Madison, WI, where we found a wonderful and welcoming community and I completed a PhD in the biology of cancer. In 1998 we moved to San Francisco where I continued as a cancer researcher at the UCSF Cancer Center.  For the past 12 years I've been working at a small biotech company that is focused on developing genetically engineered viruses as a cancer therapy. 

I've experienced the ups and downs of the biotech industry, but I still love the science.  Right now I'm part of a small team searching for funding to form a new spin-off company, which would be an amazing way to finish my career. (Broken record:  I said the same thing 2 years ago, but this time we have more support and no COVID lockdown, though the current bank failures don't help).

​Outside of work I can count on my 19 year old son and almost 17 year old daughter to make me feel irrelevant and give me plenty of chances to practice my listening skills. In my free time I like to get outdoors; also reading, walking, biking, attending live music performances and playing softball. I've played in the SF Gay Softball League for ten years and hope to experience at least one more Gay World Series.  I've loved the concept of cohousing since I first read about it 25 years ago."

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