Priscilla Anne Myrick was born in Los Angeles, California, on July 27, 1951, the daughter of Barbara Russell and David B.T. Myrick. She passed away unexpectedly, surrounded by family, at her home in Berkeley, California, on December 24, 2023 at age 72.
Priscilla grew up in Los Angeles, and she reflected back on her childhood as a stable time during which she was encouraged by her parents to do well in math, her father drilling her with flash cards. They did not impose different expectations on her as a girl than on her brother, she recalled, resulting in a love of learning and an ongoing curiosity that characterized her life.
Priscilla graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies in 1973. During her time at Cal, she pursued her intellectual interests without focusing on how she was going to support herself later and made lifelong friends. She started traveling internationally hitchhiking and taking trains through Europe solo and with friends.
After graduation, she worked as a gardener at the Watergate complex in Emeryville and as an administrative assistant at the Place-Allrich Gallery in San Francisco. During those two years, she decided to go to business school for an MBA. Professional schools were just starting to admit significant numbers of women, and she was in the vanguard of this part of the women’s movement.
In 1975, Priscilla moved across country via Greyhound bus to New York. She was shocked by some early discoveries: she now needed a winter coat, and scarves and gloves were more than fashion accessories.
She graduated from Columbia University Business School with an MBA in Accounting and Finance in 1977. While at Columbia, she importantly met her future husband, Tom, in accounting class; and she spent the Bicentennial Summer interning at the Library of Congress.
Upon graduation, she lived in Boston for four years while working as a Certified Public Accountant for Coopers & Lybrand. She fondly recalled the Blizzard of 1978, when she could cross-country ski door-to-door visiting friends in Brookline. During this time, she started her travels with Tom, backpacking in Greece and bicycling through the Loire Valley.
She returned to New York in 1981 for a Director of Finance position at PepsiCo – and for her relationship with Tom. They married in 1984 in Scarsdale, New York and soon thereafter relocated to Berkeley. This was to become their long-term home where they welcomed Christine in 1986 and Paul in 1989.
After moving to Berkeley, Priscilla worked at Genentech as Comptroller (1984-1989), and she was a founding member of the Association of Bioscience Financial Officers (1988). She then became chief financial officer and vice president of finance and administration at Oclassen Pharmaceuticals until its acquisition by Watson Pharmaceuticals in 1997 – designing her own flexible work schedule to spend time with her children while maintaining a career. In these various roles, Priscilla consistently demonstrated notable financial discipline and insight, as well as incredible dedication to her associates and her employers.
Priscilla was always an intellectually curious person who greatly valued education and passionately advocated for education for all and, in particular for young people and women. Her outwardly mismatched degrees in Religious Studies and Accounting/Finance truly reflects her wide-ranging interests, capabilities, and practicality. Following her transition from the corporate world, she became actively engaged in a variety of advocacy roles in education and community development, which she continued throughout the remainder of her life.
She served on a wide range of councils for both Berkeley High School and the Berkeley Unified School District, and she twice ran for School Board. She was a founding board member and treasurer of the Community Alliance for Learning/WriterCoach Connection.
By 2023, she had been a writing coach in various high schools and middle schools in Alameda & Contra Costa counties for over 20 years. As a fellow coach recalled, “Priscilla was a paragon as a writing coach.… Totally reliable, calm, and steady, she understood how to listen to students, connect, and inspire them to be more confident writers.” With respect to the organization, the coach recalled, “she fought fiercely for more transparency.”
She was a board member and treasurer for Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency. She served as a math tutor for middle school students. In recent years, some of the work she found most meaningful was as a docent at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco (involving students in the art and history through storytelling and drawing) and as an Alameda County Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA). Priscilla benefited from her own educational experiences and worked diligently throughout her adult life to provide similar benefits to young people in the East Bay community. She also worked with CARE International with a focus on efforts to improve the welfare of women and children around the world; a trip with them to the country of Georgia further strengthened her commitment to regional women-centered projects.
For many years, Priscilla pursued her interests in the history of civilization, art, and culture by informally auditing classes at Cal, sitting in on 18 courses over 9 years. She recalled often being the only one not using an electronic device. She also heavily referenced her much loved poster-sized map and timeline of world civilizations over her desk.
Priscilla’s intellectual curiosity applied to her interest in travel and world cultures, and the classes she audited at Cal often tied in with trips she took with Tom. They traveled often and to very diverse locations. The couple visited Turkey, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, China, Mongolia, Bhutan, Thailand, Cambodia, Georgia, Marquesas Islands, New Zealand, and six countries in Central Asia along the old Silk Road (which she considered to be the original ‘world-wide web’).
Many of these trips involved active hiking or biking…or even archeological digs. Many of the trips involved Christine and Paul as Priscilla and Tom sought to expose them to different cultures. While it was certainly true that Priscilla loved to travel, it is even more true that the motivation was to learn, to experience, to pursue her intellectual curiosity about and connect with the world.
Priscilla embraced an active lifestyle. An enduring passion was the eight-mile hike she took with friends in Tilden Park from Inspiration Point out Nimitz Way to the old Nike missile base. This trek often happily ended with a large cappuccino at the French Hotel, her favorite refueling station. She participated in multiple half marathons with her hiking buddies and completed the 21-mile Big Sur walk twice. She and Tom, often with Christine and Paul, immersed themselves in a variety of hiking locations, including the Sierras, Bryce/Zion, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Big Bend, Banff, and Acadia. Yet while her hiking experiences took her to many national parks, her greatest passion was walking in the Berkeley hills. It was a form of meditation for her.
Priscilla had a passionate interest in art that she explored both as an enthusiast and an artist. Working at Place-Allrich Gallery, serving as a docent at the Asian Art Museum, visiting a wide variety of museums during her many travels, Priscilla committed herself to experiencing art and to helping others appreciate it. She viewed art as an essential form of human expression and maintained her lifelong friendships with frequent trips to museums.
She immersed herself in creating watercolor paintings of the many natural scenes that captivated her interest, expressing and translating the beauty she saw onto the page. She did calligraphy, sewed her own clothes, and designed many landscaping elements in her yard. In her dabbling of artistic pursuits, she didn’t strive for perfection, but rather to experience the process of creating and capturing her vision in her chosen medium.
Priscilla was a beloved friend of many. She possessed a strong passion for social justice and was a compassionate advocate for others. She was a strong-willed person prone to engage in passionate dialogue in defense of her positions. She possessed a wry and understated wit. Oh, and she was a damned-good cook.
On Christmas Eve of 2023, a shining light was extinguished. Priscilla’s passing leaves a void in her family, friends, and the community, but her legacy as a loving wife, caring mother, beloved friend, and advocate for education and social issues will endure.
She is survived by her husband of 40 years, Thomas Cutillo, their daughter Christine, their son Paul, her brother Tim (wife Sarah and daughter Jane), half-sister Edna (husband Van), and numerous other cherished relatives.
Priscilla Anne Myrick will be deeply missed by all who had the privilege of knowing and loving her.
