DECEMBER 2017 6 | FRONTDOORSMEDIA .COM Tom Evans | CONTRIBUTING EDITOR If you’ve followed Frontdoors recently, by now you know that we lost our beloved editor, Mike Saucier, on November 1 after a brief and difficult battle with pancreatic cancer. It is an immeasurable personal and professional loss. Mike’s vision was invaluable in creating what you see on these pages and on our website. Mike was Frontdoors, as much as Andrea is, and certainly more than I am. Mike was an exceptional writer. He had the innate ability to cut through clutter, to take complex messages and turn them into something easily understood. That’s a primary skill for a journalist, but Mike’s ability to use the language to convey emotion was uncanny. Photo Credit: Thurkill Studios In Loving Memory of Mike Saucier 1970-2017

DECEMBER 2017 FRONTDOORSMEDIA .COM | 7 And we collaborated well — we did our best work when we went back-and-forth, challenging the way we presented the information and creating work product that would resonate with who we were trying to reach. Mike tackled his role as editor with all his mind and heart. He met people throughout the Valley philanthropic and business communities and made an impression on the people he encountered. His cover stories for the magazine allowed him to dive into his craft and tell some great stories about people and places in the community. He did speaking engagements, interviewed celebrities, and found stories that were off the beaten path. He did everything we could have ever hoped from the editor of our fledgling publication, and so much more. Even more importantly, we were friends. He and his wife Fernanda Santos and his 8-year-old daughter Flora have been frequent guests in our home and vice versa — Flora and our daughter Ellie are close friend and playmates. Once you got a chance to get to know him personally, you were able to experience the qualities that made him an exceptional human being. Mike was unassuming and kind, thoughtful but quietly confident. He always had time for a conversation and was always willing to help. He was a guy’s guy, someone who liked football and beer and rock music but also someone who read voraciously and studied the world around him. And suddenly, in a matter of weeks, he was gone. Pancreatic cancer is vicious, and insidious — by the time most people have symptoms, they’re already at Stage III or worse. That was the case with Mike. On September 19, Mike and Fernanda were in a group of eight of us who piled into Andrea’s Chevy Tahoe and went to see U2 together. He seemed in perfect health, and I’ll always remember that date as the last time everything felt normal. On October 1, after suffering from stomach pain for about a week, Mike was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I would like to be able to tell you that there was some hope, but this is not a story about rallying around the fight. His doctors developed a treatment plan for him, but the cancer was simply too aggressive. Mike handled those last days with incredible grace and gratitude. He comforted those who came to comfort him. He found peace with the terrible diagnosis, and was thankful for the life he was able to experience and enjoy. He savored his time with his family, loved ones and friends. Of all the things I admire about Mike, the way he spent those last days will always stand out. He didn’t leave anything unsaid to anyone he cared about. On Wednesday, November 1, Mike Saucier passed away. It was only five weeks after his symptoms showed up, and 30 days after his diagnosis. Certainly those last weeks were difficult, painful, agonizing, heartbreaking. But that’s not the real story of Mike’s final days with us.