‘Good guy’ Darrell Drummond dead at 62
John Ledbetter said that when a person everyone in the community knows passes away, it is said that they were “one of the good guys.”
On Monday, he said longtime friend Darrell Drummond really was one of the good guys.
Drummond, former owner of Drummond & Associates and creator of the Lodi Community Foundation, died on April 15 at the age of 62, according to Lemley Chapel in Sedro-Woolley, Wash.
According to a memorial on www.lemleychapel.com, Drummond passed away at a family cabin in Washington. A cause of death has not been disclosed.
“He was just a great guy who was always smiling,” Ledbetter said of his friend of nearly 20 years. “If you knew him, then having a conversation with you was the most important thing in the world to him. He made everybody he knew or spoke to feel very special.”
Drummond began his Lodi-based financial planning company in 1989, and retired in 2017.
During his time in Lodi, he was involved with several nonprofit and charitable organizations, most notable the Lodi Community Foundation, which he helped establish in 2005.
He was an active member of Tree Lodi, and helped plant trees at DeBenedetti Park with some 450 volunteers in 2014.
In addition, he was a former board member of the Lodi Memorial Hospital Foundation and former president of United Cerebral Palsy of San Joaquin County.
The Lodi Chamber of Commerce named him Citizen of the Year in January of 2014, and later that year he was inducted into the Lodi Community Hall of Fame.
After retiring in 2017, Drummond sold his business to friend and co-worker Daniel Raymond, and moved to Washington shortly thereafter. The business was renamed Valley Wealth Strategies.
“He was a very compassionate and kind person,” Raymond said. “He was very dedicated to the community, as well as his friends, family and clients. Retirement was kind of a tricky word for him. He never really retired, because he always found something new to
do.”
Lodi Memorial Hospital Foundation president Wayne Craig said Drummond was a board member prior to his tenure with the organization, but knew him through his philanthropy.
“What a prize of a gentleman,” Craig said. “He was so community oriented. Every time I’d call him, he’d always take my call and move his schedule to speak with me. He was just relationship-oriented, and he found people were really important in his life.”
Ledbetter said Drummond always found time to return to Lodi to visit friends and former clients, and even spoke with him days before his passing.
The two met at Avenue Grill for breakfast, and Ledbetter laughed that it was difficult to have a conversation with Drummond because everyone would come up and speak with him and want to catch up.
“I had actually invited him to the Community Philanthropy Summit that we held last Thursday,” Ledbetter said. “He had the tickets and was ready to come down from Washington.”
Ledbetter said that the idea to start the Lodi Community Foundation was Drummond’s idea, but he stepped back to let others lead the organization once it was up and running.
“The trait of his that really stands out, is that he had an ability to lead people and then get them to lead,” he said. “He was an idea guy. He’d come up with an idea, then get people he knew would lead that idea into the future.”
Ledbetter said Drummond grew up in Washington, and when he returned to his home state five years ago, he took that same sense of commitment to community service and philanthropy with him.
“I was friends with him on Facebook, and I’ve been seeing all these messages from people he knew up there,” he said. “He had the same affect in the community up there as he did when he was here in Lodi. It’s a big loss for that community up there, as well as for folks down here. I will miss him, and I’ll never forget him.”