Ryan Craig Starrett

Ryan Craig “RC” Starrett, 32, passed away tragically and unexpectedly on January 15, 2021 in a motorcycle accident while living in Kea’au (Paradise Park) on the Big Island of Hawaii, the same date his grandfather passed away 36 years prior from an avalanche in Switzerland.

Ryan was born on November 14, 1988 at Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City, California. He grew up in Foster City, California, playing American Youth Soccer and Little League Baseball, scoring the “over-the- fence” winning homerun ball in an all-star championship game in 1999. He attended St. Ambrose Episcopal Pre-School, Audubon Elementary School, Bowditch Middle School (Foster City, California) and Burlingame High School in Burlingame, California. He attended California State University, Fullerton in Southern California, where he received his Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration with a concentration in accounting.

Ryan held several accounting positions after college until he realized it was not his true calling. He then worked in sales which was a much better fit for him (he could sell ice to an Eskimo!). From 2017 to 2019, he took a career hiatus and traveled to Bangalore, India (which included motorcycling across India to South Goa), Nepal (where he attended a silent meditation monastery retreat), Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, and Mardi Himal in the Annapurna Region of the Himalayas (taking two hiking treks with elevations up to 18,000 feet!). He then traveled to Zambujeira do Mar and Lisbon (Portugal), Barcelona, and the Strait of Gibraltar on the Mediterranean Seas (where he enrolled in yacht sailing courses).

When returning to the Bay Area in 2019, Ryan continued with sales for another year before traveling to Hawaii for a planned vacation on March 16, 2020, the day before the COVID-19 pandemic stay-at-home order was mandated. He decided Hawaii would be a great place to shelter-in-place. After three months on the Big Island, he realized he had found his true calling “living off the land” in Hawaii and informed his family this was where he planned to live out the rest of his days. He started his own landscaping, construction and handyman business. He loved working with his head, hands and heart and was happiest when doing so.

Ryan was an incredibly passionate person and it would be impossible to summarize all of those passions, as he was constantly learning about or being turned on to something "new". When it ignited the passion within him, he would dive in head first for any number of days, weeks, months or years. Things that once ignited his passion earlier in life never really dimmed, but rather just became less of a focus compared to his other and more recent passions.

In addition to his passions, he also had many interests. They included traveling, fitness (distance cycling and running, completing the SF Marathon with his brother in July of 2017), adventuring, reading, language studies, building, creating and crafting, sustainability, music, vibrations, spirituality, mindfulness and awareness, astronomy, astrology, homeopathic healing and medicine, cooking (he was an amazing and creative cook!), off-grid living and non-dual consciousness.

Ryan had a very charismatic personality and made many friends. You could not help being captivated by his energy, authenticity and warmth. He loved spending time with his friends and family and would do almost anything in his power to make people laugh and ensure everyone had a great time. He touched and left an impact on many lives along his journey in life with his kindness, big and open heart, child-like enthusiasm, adventurous spirit and true love and passion for life. He had an awareness and grace for all that was.

Ryan’s social media caption was “Adventure Capitalist” and that is the way he lived his life! He was happiest when he was outdoors; whether in the redwoods, mountains or at the coast. It’s where he truly felt free, at peace and in his element. Although Ryan did not live a full life, he certainly lived life to the fullest!

He will be missed by all who knew and loved him, and his memory will live on forever through his family and friends, with some of those friends desiring to further Ryan’s legacy, and two greatest passions, developing acres of farmland in Hawaii for sustainability and the creation of a healing sanctuary. We hope these passions will one day come to fruition as a place where we can visit in Ryan’s memory.

Our beloved Ryan is survived by his parents, Randy and Diane Starrett; brother, Michael (Keely) Starrett; grandmother, Jackie Starrett; his puppy, Rajah Huey Ludwig; and aunts, uncles and cousins; all of whom he loved very much. He is preceded in death by his grandparents, George Starrett, Paul Kemmer and Shirlene Kemmer.

Please join us in a celebration of Ryan’s life on Saturday, May 21st at 11:30 a.m. at Huddart Park, 1100 Kings Mountain Road, Woodside, California. For more details and to RSVP, please visit the “Celebration for Ryan” website at https://tinyurl.com/CelebrationForRyan