By Gretchen Wing.
Lopez Island Community Scholarship Foundation (LICSF) is gearing up for spring scholarship applications with two new board members, Craig Citro and Claudia Rempel. Claudia was featured in December, so it’s time to meet Craig.
Craig was born in Plantation, Florida, or, as he puts it, “pretty much as far as you can get without leaving the continental US.” After earning a Ph.D. in Math at UCLA, Craig came to the Seattle area as a postdoc at UW. “My wife, Asia, is from the area, and we loved it too much to ever leave,” Craig says. “I switched to being a software engineer at Google, and I’ve been there ever since.” Asia Citro is a children’s book author who runs a publishing company. Her parents and Craig’s mother all live on Lopez.
Like many islanders, Craig and Asia found their way to Lopez because of its scenic beauty. “Lopez has been a family vacation spot for my wife since 1996, and the pandemic finally gave us the excuse to try out living here full time,” he says, adding, “and it’s even better than we’d hoped.” Craig’s decision to join the LICSF Board filled a niche. “I’m happy with my decision to move from academia to industry,” he reports, “but I do still miss being involved in mentoring students and helping them learn more about education and career options out there. LICSF gives me a chance to do a bit of that in a community I love.”
Lopez is a perfect fit for Craig, Asia, and their thirteen-year-old daughter and ten-year-old son, who all love to be outdoors. Especially on foot. Craig is “often out running on my own, or hiking with the family whenever I can.” The Citros are also animal lovers, sharing their Lopez
home with two cats and a tortoise. An even larger menagerie resides on a separate property: four cats, three mustangs, four miniature horses, and three burros.
A little-known fact about Craig is that he was once an extra on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Having moved to LA for grad school, he caught up with a friend who’d moved there to get into Hollywood. Craig explains, “I asked her about my chances to be an extra on Buffy. She explained how I could sign up at Central Casting, but that…there are more people wanting to be extras than roles that need filling, and beggars can’t be choosers.”
He signed up anyway, and promptly forgot about it. But a month later, he got the call from Central Casting, looking for Buffy extras. Hence, his fifteen minutes of fame—though, Craig admits, “largely out of focus and in the background.”
Stay tuned for more updates from the Lopez Island Community Scholarship Foundation, including invitations to submit applications, this spring. And if you would enjoy collaborating with people, like Craig Citro, who share a vision for continuing education for Lopez youth, or wish to support this work, please visit LICSF.org.
