The Paama Properties

by Anton Zuiker on October 2, 2026

FoodLab in Boulder, Colorado, hosts cooking classes, team building, & private events

A week ago, I was sitting outside the Creature Comforts cafe on Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado, with a few hours to roam until I could pick up my bib number and finisher t-shirt for the Boulderthon half marathon. I’d come from my cousin Justin’s house in Denver on the Flatiron Flyer bus, walked to Boxcar Coffee Roasters for coffee and yogurt (and peeked inside FoodLab next door), then taken a few more steps to this cafe. I was relaxed, comfortable in the cool morning air, enjoying the people watching, and open to inspiration by the record store across the street, the mountains behind the city, and a big decision I’d just made.

In December, I will retire from my work at Duke University, where I’ve worked for 19 years as a medical, science, and research communicator.

The Duke School of Medicine has been a good place for me to grow as a writer, project manager, and team leader. I’m proud of what my colleagues and I accomplished, first in the Duke Health news office with improvements to the Inside Duke Medicine newspaper and then in the Department of Medicine with our communications strategy and the Voices of Duke Health listening booth and podcast. In the DCRI Research Communications & Engagement department, I’ve spent the last six years partnering with a talented team supporting large national research networks. DCRI gave me the space to dive into coaching and learn to be a curious and supportive leader.

That curiosity was sparkling in the mountain air.

Erin and I had determined that my retirement would allow me to become ‘director of special projects’ at home, meaning I’ll lean into the cooking, cleaning, shopping, appointments, and other household needs. That will give Erin more time to focus on her successful law practice (and explore her own future goals). We also decided that Paama Properties, a small LLC we started years ago to manage a rental house, offered a fertile ground to grow some of our ideas. We’d named that company for the small island where we had served as U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers in the Republic of Vanuatu in the South Pacific.

On Paama, we lived in Liro Village, where we learned different styles of communication—we spoke Bislama, the lingua franca of Vanuatu, and a little Paamese, and we used nonverbal cues such as eyebrow flickers to indicate a ‘yes.’ Most importantly, we learned the joy of sitting with others under the mango tree for long conversations, what ni-Vanuatu call storian. (In Hawaii, where I lived after college, they call this ‘talk story.’)

As an early blogger and adopter of social media, I built on this Paama Peace Corps service to organize online communities through face-to-face activities, including BlogTogether meetups and the annual ScienceOnline participant-driven conference. During my ‘decade of narrative’ to nurture connection and community, I put on Talk Story storytelling shows, hosted The Long Table culinary events, and created Voices of Duke Health. Retirement will offer me an opportunity to continue this thread of community gathering, conversation, and storytelling.

This thread, I noticed while sitting at that outside table in Boulder, wore a name: The Paama Properties. Ta-da. A shift in meaning, from properties as parcels to properties as elements, crystallized my past service and future retirement goals and expressed what Erin and I always have wanted to give back to the world, Paama Properties as a means to bring people together over meals and storian.

By the time my coffee cup was empty, I’d drafted a two-page business plan to guide The Paama Properties, with a magazine, more meals, a new listening booth, and more. Details and invitations to come.

Coda

My cousin Jennifer ran the Boulderthon full marathon, and the course allowed us to run side-by-side for the first 10 miles. Her brothers Justin and John, and their families, and Aunt Elaine, and Uncle Terry and Aunt Riggs, were all at the finish line when she ran across. An amazing family affair full of love and hugs. Uncle Dennis, who died last November, was most definitely there in spirit.

Next post: | Previous post: Out on a limb | Go to HOME