Laurie is an island girl who has been residing on St John since 2002. Considering a permanent move, Laurie and her husband came to St. John on a vacation to look at houses and job opportunities. While he was looking at houses, she was looking at jobs, and the Westin resort hired her on the spot and said she needed to back within 2 months to start her job. She actually wasn’t even sure what the job was they hired her for. In her enthusiasm, she had neglected to ask what the job might be. Apparently minor details never cross her mind. Two months later, Laurie moved into the house they purchased, and her husband caught up nearly a year later after selling and moving them out of their California home.

Laurie found out that her job would be working with the bell staff, and she spent months acclimating to the hot sun hauling luggage up and down steps and across the multi-acre resort, in and out of hotel rooms, safari trucks, boats, and golf carts wearing long pants and wallowing in “swamp ass”. She later traded in that job for many others including working on a luxury day charter wallowing in “boat butt” and finally found her true calling volunteering for the Animal Care Center and thus working at the local vet’s office where she gets to be with dogs all day. When she goes home at night, she gets to play with more dogs as she now has 5 island dogs, though her husband is close to cutting her off.

She loves her island home and loves that she can leave her home not looking her best on any given morning to run errands, grab her mail, visit with friends and no one cares. Whether necessary or not, Laurie gets a pedicure once a year. She makes it a point to not remove her toenail polish instead enjoying watching how long it takes for the color to grow out.

Laurie used to swim every day and has made it her goal to get back into the routine and prepare for a sprint triathlon on her next birthday. In her spare time, she and her theme-park-designer husband have created a company called Amora, the Essence of St. John, which makes and sells bamboo reed room diffusers, Island AirSprays, and colorful lip butters in tasty island flavors like painkiller, bushwhacker, and many other island scents and flavors.

Laurie’s dream is to someday meet the people of Shark Tank and have them offer her a deal so she can retire and “lime it” on the Caribbean rock she calls home.