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When Barbara Collier Hanna '81 abandoned the software industry to become a lavender farmer, "the first couple of months out there, it felt like I'd just jumped out of an airplane without a parachute." Seven years later, the pastoral lifestyle seems to suit her just fine.

A couple of miles away, Barbara Collier Hanna ’81 runs Lost Mountain Lavender. Whereas the Angels retail their products through their shop, All Things Lavender, in Pike Place Market, and open their farm to the public for only a few days in July during the annual Lavender Festival, Hanna’s farm is open much of the year. She opens her field of lavender to customers who want to pick their own and tends a small shop on the property, where she sells lavender-based products ranging from soap to honey from bees that have grazed on lavender. She makes many of the products herself, including lavender-filled pillows and sachets. Even though she does a lively business over the Internet, 80 percent of her sales take place at her farm.

If the physical move to Sequim was not far for Hanna and the Angels, the career move was dramatic. Hanna and her husband Gary—-now a freelance illustrator—-were very successful in the ’90s Seattle software boom. But the nosedive of the industry in 2000 prompted a change in direction.

“For 25 years, I convinced myself I liked the security of working for somebody else,” says Hanna. “And there’s something very nice about the consistency of paychecks and having your benefits paid.”

But following the demise of her company, which had only recently thrived with the rest of the industry, “I guess I came to not trust that as much anymore.”

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