Lorraine Carlson is delighted to be a part of SAGE’s Board of Directors and share the creative spark, entrepreneurial instincts, and passion for excellence that served her well throughout three different careers. Though the 3 D’s of Success —Desire, Determination & Discipline provided an excellent mantra for the years Lorraine performed as an opera singer and voice teacher on the East Coast and in Europe, her passion for music began at age four with piano studies that morphed into conducting, jazz improvisation and classical voice training during high school, college, graduate school and beyond. By her late thirties, Lorraine seamlessly transferred the 3 D’s into a professional fundraising career that spanned fifteen years with some of New York and the San Francisco/Bay Area’s finest non-profit cultural and educational institutions.
Lorraine shifted gears again by completing an M.B.A. in 2003 and starting a new business venture that involved designing, manufacturing, and installing custom-made architectural glass products. The vision behind Alorisa Glassworks was to disrupt the
“vanilla” mass-produced glazing industry by transforming the visual architecture of each client’s home and commercial space with one-of-a-kind, high-end heat-sculpted, and decorative glass products, each custom-made to be functional, tactile, and aesthetically beautiful. Then fate intervened in 2011 when Lorraine and her wife, Isabelle, were both struck by a speeding car while walking in a crosswalk near their home. The resulting injuries were so severe that both women had to cease working for almost a year to focus on healing and recovery. After realizing that they’d benefit health-wise by relocating to a warmer climate with a more relaxed lifestyle, Lorraine and Isabelle moved from Oakland to Palm Springs in 2017.
Today, Lorraine enjoys sharing her talents as a leader, donor, and volunteer within several local, regional and national charitable and community-service organizations, including Planning Ahead for LGBTQ Seniors [PALS], The LGBTQ+ Center of the Desert, National Center for Lesbian Rights [NCLR], Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund [LLDEF], The L-Fund, Courageous Resistance of the Desert/Indivisible 36, Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest, and NARAL Pro-Choice California. In recognition of her strong commitment to the area’s LGBTQ community, Lorraine was awarded the Palm Spring Pride’s OUTstanding Voices Award in 2019. She also became a French citizen in 2020 and she and Isabelle look forward to spending several months each year in France/EU, once the pandemic subsides enough to travel safely again.
