Craig Kelley

CRAIG DOUGLAS KELLEY, 59, f Jackson, passed away from illness on April 12, 2013, just four days short of his 60th birthday. Owner of the Sassy Moose Inn, Jackson Hole Landscaping and Complete Tree Service, Craig found success in virtually everything he put his mind to. Born in 1953 in Lincoln, Nebraska, to Donald Ray and Polly Campbell Kelley, from early on Craig demonstrated superior athletic ability. He learned to swim at four years old and went on to be a champion swimmer, gymnast, and high diver. At 14, Craig electrified both sides of the bleachers as a record breaking running back for the Hanau Hawks in Hanau, Germany and later, as a West High Warrior in Torrance, California. Ever on top of his game and the top of his class, Craig was voted both most popular and most likely to succeed and was his high school's valedictorian.

He graduated from Harvard in 1975 with a B.A. in Soviet-American economics. He married his first wife, Victoria Peterson, and within a year of graduation they had a daughter, Ashley. Craig was also blessed with a brilliant mind for business. After college, he joined the Bridgestone Tire Company as a market analyst retiring 18 years later in 1992 as Executive Vice President.

Upon leaving the corporate world, Craig pursued a new dream and purchased a small frontage road residence in Jackson, Wyoming. With the help of his mother, Polly, he converted it into a bed & breakfast called The Sassy Moose Inn. Craig met and married his second wife Natallia, bringing her, and her son Anton, from Belarus to be a family together in Jackson Hole. Never idle, over the next several years Craig funded all kinds of start ups, brought new products to market and more recently acquired several landscape companies and consolidated them under the Jackson Hole Landscape Company and Complete Tree Service. To the very end, Craig was helping his friend and partner, Martin Lee, to bring to market a new medical device that provides relief for people with injuries.

Craig was always generous and kind and an eternal optimist. He never ceased to take a phone call, provide a helping hand, invest in the life of a stranger, and he never shrank from a challenge. He leaves behind a wife and son, daughter, two grand children, mother, two brothers, three nieces and two nephews. Consider yourself lucky to know a man like Craig. His many friends, associates, and family miss him dearly.

Memorial services for Craig Kelley will be held on his birthday, Tuesday, April 16, 2013 at 12:00 Noon at the Valley Mortuary in Jackson, Wyoming with a gathering for friends at 5:00 that afternoon at the Sassy Moose (3895 Miles Rd., Wilson, WY) P.M.

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