Ross Stromberg

May 5, 1940 - September 19, 2022

Ross Stromberg, son of Noah Anders Stromberg and Anna Laura Noyes, died peacefully September 19, 2022 of Alzheimer’s disease. He was 82 years old.

Born May 5, 1940 in Arcata, California, Ross enjoyed summer trips to the Stromberg family camp in lower Redway, California, where he and his brother Rick would swim in the Eel River and play among the redwoods with their cousins, aunts, and uncles. Ross graduated from Arcata High School in 1958 and Humboldt State in 1962 with a degree in Political Science and stories of his prowess as a yell leader for the Lumberjack cheer squad.

Ross graduated from UC Berkeley’s Law School 1965 where he was a member of the Moot Court Honors Program. Ross traded summer jobs in lumber mills and turkey farms for an associate attorney position at Hanson Bridgett Marcus & Jenkins LLP in San Francisco. He was admitted to the State Bar of California in January 1966.

It was during his final year at Cal that Ross connected with his childhood friend from Arcata, Margaret “Margi” Telonicher, while they were both home for the holidays. The flood of 1964 washed out all the roads, prolonging a stay that would nurture their new romance. They married in 1965 and settled in north Berkeley where they raised their four children, each of whom he referred to with nicknames that he continued to use throughout their adult lives. The 1970s and 1980s in Berkeley are remembered with countless Cal games, trips to Redway, picnics, superbowl parties, and river rafting trips with the Spear, Foley, Kraetzer, Warden, Hawthorne, and Vlahos families, among many others.

Early in his law career, Ross joined a partner at a meeting with the California Hospital Association to discuss representing the Association. The partner left Ross, an upstart lawyer with little experience, with a client that others overlooked, because, to hear Ross describe it, healthcare law barely existed in the mid-1960s. Ross took an interest in the client and would go on to spend his entire career at the forefront of the rapidly expanding arena of healthcare law, quickly establishing himself as a leading lawyer in the field. Ross attended the first annual Meeting of the American Hospital Association’s American Society of Hospital Attorneys (ASHA) in 1968, and went on to attend all of the next 47 Annual Meetings as a Board Member, faculty presenter, and Fellow. Ross was a past president of ASHA, and also a past president of the American Health Lawyers Association, and the founding director of the California Society for Healthcare Attorneys.

Ross specialized in hospital mergers & acquisitions and helped establish managed care networks nationwide, a key organizing principle of universal healthcare, a cause he cared deeply about. He also guest lectured in a graduate course “Health Facilities and Services Planning,” at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health in the early 1980s. While born, raised, and educated in California, Ross’s healthcare work was truly national in scope and he provided legal services for health systems, companies and communities across the United States. Ross developed a reputation among his peers and clients as an extremely sharp legal mind who could transcend complicated contractual work with warmth, friendliness, and quick wit, fostering a sense of camaraderie among all those he worked with.

In 2009, Ross concluded his law practice at Jones

Day law firm as the partner leader of their national health law practice and continued as a healthcare consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers until 2015. Ross was as tireless in his volunteer work as he was during his legal career, serving as Chair of the Board of Directors of Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa, and as a board member of Sutter Health West Bay, the Sutter Pacific Medical Foundation, the Pediatric Dental Initiative Surgery Center, and the Healthcare Foundation of Northern Sonoma County. Ross also fundraised for Healdsburg Jazz by hosting “Jazz in the Meadow” events at his home on Wallace Creek, and became an active supporter of Farm to Pantry.

Ross moved to Healdsburg in 1997 where he carried out his lifelong dream of living on a vineyard and producing his own wine. Having grown grapes in Lake County during the pioneering days of the 1970s, Ross bottled estate grown vintages of cabernet sauvignon in 2005 and 2006 that earned acclaim, and continued to bottle wines under the Stromberg Vineyards label until 2015. Ross leaned into his social life in Healdsburg with the same gusto that he brought to his professional life. While not an athlete - despite showing bravado on the pétanque courts of the local Healdsburg league - he was an excellent dancer, and would happily twirl anyone within earshot of a song. He married Gillian Rendle in 2006, and the two settled into their home in the Dry Creek Valley, enjoying travel and their friends in the Healdsburg community. Gillian passed away in 2015 from ALS. Ross later found a new partner in Melita Love on and off the pétanque court, whom he loved with all of his heart up until the day he died.

Ross had few regrets, though sadly he never got to see his Cal Bears go to the Rose Bowl nor live out the day to see Trump behind bars.

Ross is survived by his four children, Kristin “Krissy Wissy,” Matthew “Maffertooter-bug,” Gretchen “Snooks,” and Erik “Buffalo Boy;” stepchildren David Weiner and Sarah Schaffer; grandchildren Kian, Manu, Jasper, Anders, George, Olive, and Maria; his brother Rick and sister-in-law Pat; his daughters-in-law Yalda and Megan; his son-in-law John; numerous nieces and nephews; his former wife Margi, and his last love, Melita.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Humboldt State University Foundation, Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital, Healthcare Foundation of Northern Sonoma County, Corazon Healdsburg, Pediatric Dental Initiative, Farm to Pantry, Golestan Kids, Healdsburg Jazz, UC Berkeley Law, or The ALS Association Golden West Chapter.