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Michael Meriwether Hethmon passed away in a car accident on July 25, 2020. His partner Elena was also killed in the accident. Mike was born in London, England on December 9, 1953 to Robert Henry Hethmon and Charlotte Bernice Hethmon (née Charlotte Fortune). He grew up in New York, Wisconsin, and California, and began traveling extensively when he was just a teenager. At 17, he went to England to attend university at the University of Lancaster, but his wanderlust got the best of him, and he left school to further travel the world and collect the almost-too-wild-to-be-true stories he liked to tell about his adventures. Eventually, he completed his undergraduate degree in Middle Eastern Studies at UCLA. He would go on to complete a Masters in International Business at Thunderbird and get his law degree at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Mike met Lori Hoffmann while they were both international flight attendants on Pan Am Airlines. In 1986, they married and they had three children together. While their children were young, they continued to travel and lived in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, before settling in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. They separated in 2013 but stayed in touch, and Mike had recently hired Lori to list his house in Upper Marlboro so he could fulfill his retirement dream and move to a house he’d bought in Bristol, TN, not too far from the town his mother grew up in.

Mike was the Senior Legal Counsel at a policy advocacy institution in Washington, D.C. He also used his legal acumen to advocate for environmental issues in his area and to prevent over-development of the Chesapeake Bay watershed wetlands in and around Upper Marlboro.

He is survived by his two brothers, Mark and Tom; his three adult children, a daughter and two sons, Andrew and Daniel; and his ex-wife Lori.

An online memorial service will be held on Saturday, August 15, 2020, at 2:00 PM Eastern Time to celebrate Mike’s life. For access, please fill out this Google form, and we will send you the join details: https://forms.gle/69TxL9t7nLBNMAFk6

In lieu of flowers, please send donations in Mike’s name to the Chesapeake Conservancy.