As Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area celebrates its 40th birthday this year, it also marks another major milestone: 25 years of Lynne Durie’s game-changing contributions to the organization, most recently as its chief operating officer.

Durie, who stepped down in January to pursue a new chapter in her career, will continue supporting the organization as a donor and volunteer. But it is her above-and-beyond dedication to the organization’s staff, supporters, mission, and thousands of wish kids that will define her legacy for generations to come.  

Looking back, Durie reflects on how her role at Make-A-Wish evolved over the years to meet the organization’s ever-changing needs. “I was really in the right place at the right time,” she says of her decision to join MAW’s then-small staff in 1998. “I am the pure definition of on-the-job learning because I just jumped in. I had the interest to learn and the willingness to take things on.” 

Durie had not always intended to pursue a career in the nonprofit sector—in fact, she earned a master’s degree in French with the intention of becoming a French teacher. But when she landed a job in 1997 at a San Mateo science museum called CuriOdyssey, she realized that nonprofit work was her calling.  

“I knew immediately that these were my people,” she says of her coworkers. “I wanted to be part of something bigger than me, part of something really meaningful.” 

CuriOdyssey was also where Durie made a life-changing connection with Patricia WiIson, then the museum’s executive director. In 1998, Wilson was named executive director of Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area, a job she would hold for the next 17 years. And one of the first things Wilson would do in her new position was hire Durie.  

“I knew I wanted to keep working in nonprofit,” Durie says. “And when I learned about the Make-A-Wish mission, I was even more excited to be a part of it. In the beginning, I was an assistant and did a little bit of everything—answering phones, processing mail, writing thank-you cards. When I took the job, I thought, I’ll do this for a couple of years and then figure out what I’m going to do next.” 

But Durie soon found out that Make-A-Wish was the perfect fit, with tremendous opportunities for both personal and professional growth. “I learned so much from Patricia,” Durie recalls. “For one thing, I learned to believe in myself and in my abilities. I have always been a natural problem solver, and I learned not to be afraid to try different ways to figure things out. And that’s one thing I love about the spirit of nonprofit work: If something has to get done, it doesn’t matter who does it, as long as it gets done.” 

Over the years, Durie took on a growing list of responsibilities. She managed the demanding process of moving the Make-A-Wish office to new locations four different times; she learned how to recruit, interview, and recommend new staff members to join the team; and she learned how to execute human resources, payroll, and administrative functions.

"It's not often that you are so fortunate to have identified talent who can grow with your organization and whose skills grow and who's also not afraid to say 'I don't know how to do that, but I'll learn how to do that.'" says Wilson, of her tenure with Durie. "How beautiful that is to watch this—her maturity, in terms of career and professionalism, and taking that as a challenge. It’s a rare thing when someone can go from foundation assistant to her position. That doesn't happen often."

Her job description kept increasing as she was promoted to operations manager, then operations director, and ultimately COO. Working with current CEO Betsy Biern since 2016, Durie has handled all the aforementioned tasks as well as managed the office and outside consultant groups and served as the primary staff liaison for the board of directors.

"It was such an asset to have Lynne there at the beginning of my tenure, not only for her vast organizational knowledge, but because of her deep dedication to the organization, our staff, board, volunteers, donors, and—above all—our wish kids and their families," says Biern. "She truly kept the mission centered in all her hard work and fostered that spirit in everyone she encountered. I'm so grateful for her support and I will miss her tremendously."

Durie's dedication to the mission comes in part from serving as a volunteer wish granter throughout her 25 years with the chapter. “Everything we do relates to our ability to continue granting wishes,” she explains. “I have been a wish granter all along, but I did not always have the time or bandwidth to do as much as I’d have liked. But I look forward to continuing as a volunteer wish granter, hopefully forever.” 

When asked to share her favorite wish memories, Durie says that while there are too many to count, the first wish she was involved with still has a special place in her heart. A young girl named Rachel, who’d had surgery for a brain tumor, wished to meet Barney the dinosaur. 

When the day came to grant the wish, which included delivering the itinerary to Rachel’s family along with a check for travel expenses, Durie says she will never forget the mom’s reaction. “I remember Rachel’s mom being in awe and not believing how well planned everything was,” Durie says. “I realized how powerful her gratitude was—and that incredible feeling has continued throughout all my years here.” 

Durie also played a key role in some of the organization’s biggest wishes—including the wish of eight-year-old leukemia patient Ben to create a cancer-fighting videogame, the wish of 12-year-old Matt to be in a Spider-Man movie, and the 2013 wish of 5-year-old Miles, aka Batkid, to team up with Batman to fight crime in San Francisco. 

But perhaps most gratifying, she says, are the philanthropic wishes, when kids choose to use their wishes to help others. “More and more, we started seeing the wish to give,” Durie recalls. “The kids in the Bay Area are a sophisticated group, and we were always struck by their creativity and big hearts.” 

Now, Durie looks forward to spending more time with her husband and son, who is a high school student in their hometown of Hayward. She knows that another phase of her career still lies ahead—“I’m giving myself a little sabbatical,” she says with a laugh, “but I’m not retiring”—and wants to take time to decide what to do next.   

“I am super proud of this organization, but the time is right for change,” she says. “Make-A-Wish will always be intertwined with who I am, and it has been a real privilege to be part of it.”