In the Spotlight - Lauralai LaRue

by Meghan Clark

A passionate gardener and outdoorswoman, it was a natural fit during harvest season to ask Lauralai to share some information about her life. Thank you Lauralai for putting down your garden spade and gloves to share some time with us!

Lauralai is a Ventura County native. She feels very fortunate to have grown up in Simi Valley, California. A Royal High graduate, she went on to Moorpark College before starting her path in Human Resources.

She and her husband have a small boat and camper and can be frequently spotted at their favorite camping haunts, including Lake Casitas and Carpinteria Beach.

Her weekend getaways also give her the chance to practice her amateur photograph, including many beautiful pictures of sunsets on the beach and at the lake.

At home, Lauralai turns her attention to her kitchen garden. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and artichokes are staples. She likes those vegetables in particular because they are naturally resistant to bugs and she can try to minimize the amount of bug killer she has to use. She uses what she grows in her "garden to table" cooking and as she says, "there is nothing more satisfying than growing your own vegetables and then tossing them up in a wonderful salad or cooking them on the BBQ."

The crown jewel of her garden is an organic apple tree that she has nurtured from the beginning. It now provides bumper crops of apples for her each year which are whipped into apple sauce and apple pies by her expert hands.

On the work front, eighteen (18) years ago she started in Human Resources at a large company in Oxnard and worked in Human Resources ever since. Lauralai has been the Senior Human Resources Representative for Ricoh Printing Systems America, Inc. for the last eight (8) years. Ricoh is a specialized manufacturer of inkjet print heads for very large billboard and poster printers. She thinks that when her path in Human Resources is over, she might want to try her hand at farming!

Lauralai has attended EAC meetings for the last fifteen (15) years. She says that she finds the meetings extremely informative on up-to-date topics. The meetings get right to the point, have a lot of information in a short amount of time and are also a great opportunity to network with her peers.

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