Obituary: Cynthia Adele Collins, Hood River Valley — Columbia Community Connection News Mid-Columbia Region

Cynthia Adele Collins died peacefully at home during the predawn hours of July 3, 2023. A full moon was shining brightly above her rustic farmhouse in the middle section of the Hood River Valley, and Cindy adored full moons. Surrounding her home in the moonlight were her carefully tended gardens and her orchard where she grew cherries and pears.

Cindy’s path to becoming a successful orchardist was multidimensional, much like Cindy herself. She was born in San Francisco on November 11, 1959, the first child of Bruce and Adele Collins, and spent her early childhood years with her family in nearby Mill Valley. In 1968 they relocated to Fircrest and then to Lakewood near the southern end of Washington’s Puget Sound. The family passion was alpine skiing, and from November through April they spent nearly every weekend at their small cabin that afforded ready access to White Pass Ski Area. There Cindy and her three younger brothers became expert skiers and ski racers. Cindy’s favorite race was the downhill, the event that involved the greatest speed and risk.

But there was much more to Cindy than the courage to go for broke. She was a straight-A student who also developed great skill in arts and crafts, sewing, knitting, and cooking. In 1982 she graduated from the University of Washington with a double major in computer science and business and then moved to Portland to work as a software engineer at Tektronix, Inc. and subsequently at Intel Corporation. By 1987 her expertise had advanced so much that she was invited to join a small start-up company, Multiflow, in Connecticut. There she helped develop innovative software architectures that boosted the speed of information processing by large computers. Later she sometimes joked that, surrounded by Ph.D.’s, she needed to explain to them how some aspects of their software really worked. In 1990 Cindy moved back to Portland, where she did another brief stint at Intel and then joined a new start-up company, Equator, to continue her work on software development and serve as a consultant to Fujitsu in Japan.

Few career transitions could be more dramatic than the one Cindy made in 1996 when, as she put it, “I bought the farm.” But Cindy had a vision of a rural lifestyle in Hood River County, and when she set her sights on a goal, she wasn’t easily deterred. She gradually mastered the art of fruit farming, and her curiosity and fearless approach to problem solving allowed her to tackle the technical complexities of farm machinery and infrastructure. Cindy simultaneously found time to restore her old farmhouse and classic barn, and she planted gardens everywhere that transformed her property into what felt like heaven on Earth. She took a leadership role in the Central Gorge Master Gardeners and was elected to the Board of Directors of the Hood River Soil and Water Conservation District, where she served from 2008 until 2020.

And Cindy kept skiing right up through January 2023, even as the cancer she’d coped with so gracefully for more than 13 years began to overtake her. Her family and friends will miss her deeply in many ways, but perhaps most of all we will miss her calm, warm, and gentle manner that belied the heart of a lioness that lay within.

Cindy is survived by her three brothers and nine nieces and nephews: Ross Collins of Truckee, CA (spouse Renee, children: Shane, Leigh, and Graham); Drew Collins of Encinitas, CA (spouse Stephanie, children: Max, Luca, and Enzo); and Neil Collins of Mill Valley, CA (partner Annie, children: Gibson, Wendy, and Maude, who’s taken over operation of Cindy’s farm). Also important in Cindy’s life were her two black Labrador retrievers, Arthur and Beau, and her longtime partner, Richard (Dick) Iverson of Hood River.

Donations in Cindy’s memory may be sent to Central Gorge Master Gardener Association, 2990 Experiment Station Drive, Hood River, OR 97031.

No formal funeral is planned. Cremation was performed at Anderson's Tribute Center, Hood River (phone 541-386-1000).

Visit www.AndersonsTributeCenter.com to leave a note of condolence for the family.