August has been a teary-eyed month at Ohno Design. Grace Whalen, our Artistic Engineer, returned home to Chicago. When she started working here a little over a year ago, we knew her husband, Mike Whalen, had a temporary job with the Federal Court and they would move back to Chicago in August 2016. But Grace quickly became an integral part of the team.
If you’ve worked with Ohno in the last year, then you know Grace has a quick wit. We have a file here called “Stupid Things We Say.” It is littered with Grace comments, such as “I talked to Santa Claus at 1:30, so I peaked today” and “I win Halloween!” She also is unfailingly cheerful and highly efficient. A quick wit, good attitude and efficiency – that’s a killer combination in a colleague. (Fortunately for Ohno and our clients, we enticed Ashlee, who is just as witty, upbeat and organized, to come work with us. But that’s a different story.)
People outside the Ohno team may not know that Grace loves eating, cooking and trading recipes. Her apartment was next door to the Ohno Design Studio, so our afternoons were often fragrant with the scents of roast chicken, eggplant parmesan and simmering sauces for her homemade pasta. Grace never failed to offer the team a taste of whatever she was cooking. She also never failed to head to Carroll Park for a game of tennis or visit the Bay Area Family Y to work off the calories.
We will miss her. But we also know Grace and Mike love to host friends for the weekend. The two of them had more weekend guests in the last year than the rest of us combined. So you know before Grace’s plane landed in Chicago, we were all planning a trip to catch up with Grace and Mike over a plate of homemade pasta.
In the meantime, we’ll leave you the above photo of Grace on the porch, dressed up in 1970s attire, for a costume party.
