In Loving
Memory

Leann Catherine Harris

Jan. 22, 1974 – Dec. 28, 2020

Leann Harris, 46, of Richmond, Virginia passed away from a cardiac event on December 28, 2020, at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital.

Leann was a senior business analyst & scrum master. She supported the IT department for Verus Underwriters in this role. She was responsible for bringing the agile process to the company and assisted with transforming the way they approach their IT work while implementing several new systems.

That was Leann’s day job. To tell her complete story we have to talk about what she loved. Leann loved reading, dogs, and giving her time and skills to help those in need. She was a tremendous advocate for certified therapy dogs and many of her dogs were therapy dogs. Her love of dogs and reading led to a natural pairing of Leann with the Paws to Read program.

Leann participated in the Paws To Read program with her golden retriever, Ash, in the Richmond area.

Leann did work with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund. She was a Type 1 diabetic who used her dreadful experience with the disease to help and mentor others. She took part in many experimental trials related to diabetic supplies in hopes of helping to find better management tools for Type 1 diabetics.

Leann was an ardent proponent of organ donation. She worked for years in IT at United Network for Organ Sharing on the liver team. She was able to donate organs that will save others. It is certainly fitting that this is the last thing she does. If you have never considered organ donation, please do, it can save lives.

Leann was also passionate about getting people the proper therapeutic help they need. She was a part of the ACBS and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy community. She was recently appointed Lead of the Digital Pillar of ACBS, She also held a l eadership position in ACBS Coaching SIG, and was a founder and mentor of ACBS group “Promotophobic No More” – a group designed to increase support for and promote networking among mental health professionals who struggle with marketing and self-promotion.

Leann’s first love was reading. She believed that books could educate, empower, and heal. She had a special love of self help books. She was quick to suggest the perfect helpful book for a person’s situation.This love of matching self-help books to their needed readers led her to develop her podcast, Shelf Aware Books Podcast and her online Instagram presence. She was a champion of any reading cause whose goal is to get people
reading.

Leann was one of the true “helpers”. Her kind and helpful spirit will be missed. She was a hero to many and will continue to inspire long after her time here. We must say farewell to her but she will continue to live on in each of us and the kindness and compassion that we can show towards others. Survivors include her husband, Brandon, her mother Patricia Ann Diehl, her sister Heidi Diehl-Burton, her nieces and nephews Ava, Penny, Sage, Zander, and Gary. Also, survived by many aunts, uncles, cousins, and numerous friends around the world. She was preceded in death by her father Roderick Diehl, her half-sister Wendy Diehl Lindon, her half-brother Steven Diehl, her grandparents Henry and Catherine Langlitz & Welty and Sallie Diehl.

There will be a celebration of her life later in the year when family and friends can gather safely.
Memorials may be made to Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund https://www2.jdrf.org/ or Sprite’s Hero http://spriteshero.org/donate-2/

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