Paulette A. Cichon

On Saturday, October 15th of Arlington, Virginia, passed unexpectedly in her sleep in her beloved condo in St. Petersburg, Florida with her loving husband John R. Tolle of 43 years by her side. Paulette is survived by her sister Florence MacIntrye-Pulling, her niece Chris Syverson and her husband Bill, her nephew Chuck Bidus, her sister-in-law Mary Ann Gerson, her niece Nanette Cichon, her grand-niece Amiee Skidds and her husband Matt and their children, and her grandnephew Brian and his wife Kristina and their children. Her father Aloysius, her mother Mary Cichon and her brother Ron Cichon predeceased her.

Paulette was born in Cicero, Illinois. She paid her own way through college by working in the computer field. She attended the University of Illinois and Northern Illinois University, where she was first awarded a B.S. in Business and Mathematics and then a MBA in Finance and Quantitative Methods. She was the only woman in her MBA class. She took additional graduate courses at the University of Chicago business school, the Sloan School of Management at MIT and the John F. Kennedy School for Government at Harvard.

She began her career at CNA Insurance in Chicago, where she was one of only two women in the five thousand management personnel the company had. Then she relocated to the Washington D.C. area in 1974 when her husband attended law school and had a long and distinguished career working for information services companies in the Washington, D.C. area.

During 1997 and 1998, as Deputy Director, Information Management in the Clinton White House Office, she managed and oversaw the effort to bring all White House systems through the Y2K issues. While there she managed 150+ person organization that consisted of three divisions: Information Systems and Technology, Facilities, and Library Services.

Paulette and her husband traveled all over the world, with their most recent trip being to Christ Church, New Zealand and the Australian Open in Melbourne. She loved art and was a collector. She was an avid reader of fiction, science fiction and history, and had a great interest in Greek and Roman mythology. She was a gourmet cook who loved trying new recipes. She was very knowledgeable about both birds and fish, and had multiple fish tanks and birds over the years. She loved animals and had numerous dogs and cats, the most recent one her beloved Leonberger, Fritize. She was an dedicated tennis player, first learning the game at Vic Braden’s Academy in California, who played and took lessons for many years at the McLean Sport and Health Club and Vinoy Club in St. Petersburg, Florida, competing on numerous tennis teams. Through her husband, she acquired a love of jazz and loved attending live jazz performances.

A Memorial Service to celebrate the life of Paulette Cichon will be on Saturday, October 29, 2016, from 2-5 pm at the Murphy Arlington Funeral Home, 4510 Wilson Blvd., Arlington. The family will accept flowers or a memorial donation to the Leo Rescue Inc. at www.leonberger-rescue.org.