Lawrence Stewart

There aren’t many people who can say they’ve held the dual titles of “Assistant Winemaker” and “Office Manager,” but those were Lawrence Stewart’s roles when he joined Quilceda Creek in 2007. He’d been working part time at the winery ever since the summer of 2002 when one of his high school friends, who had a part time job at Quilceda Creek, asked Lawrence if he wanted to help bottle some wine at a nearby winery. “I had no idea Quilceda Creek even existed, much less that this world-famous winery was in my own backyard.”

That same summer Lawrence also happened to be interning at The Boeing Company. He was in the midst of earning his Bachelor of Science in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the University of Washington. Lawrence interned at Boeing every summer for four years, and after earning his master’s degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University, he was hired by the company full time.

While at Boeing, Lawrence continued to help out at Quilceda Creek whenever he could, even using vacation time and sick leave to do it. In addition to bottling he helped with blending, racking and the fall harvest as well as commercial wine deliveries. In 2007 when he got a full-time job offer at Quilceda Creek - though he’d had the Boeing job for just a year - Lawrence jumped at it. “I couldn’t say no to working at one of the best wineries in the world. Though my Boeing colleagues were puzzled at first, eventually they understood and were even, I think, a little envious.”

In the years since joining Quilceda Creek, Lawrence’s job has evolved and today his role is focused primarily on the winery’s direct to consumer business, including customer service, sales, overseeing the warehouse and managing order fulfilment. Still, he gets pulled into production as needed, driving a forklift at bottling and operating the winery’s six-ton press at harvest.

“I love the variety of my job and the hands-on work. It’s good to feel you’re an integral part of a small team turning out a world class product.” A native of Snohomish, Lawrence has many interests outside of work, including skiing, backpacking, mountaineering, rock climbing, white water kayaking and fly fishing. He also runs and participates in triathlons.