Timothy David Raines

Born in Everett, WA on May 8, 1951, he spent his 10 years of childhood in Seattle, then his family, working in the space program, moved to Huntsville, AL where he spent his high school years, earning top honors and graduating in the top 1% of his class. He then attended the University of Alabama. Timothy served in several leadership roles and headed up key reforms to university programs. He established a Professor in Residence system and assisted the opening of the Omicron Delta Kappa nationally to females. He won several national debate championships and graduated with honors in public administration. He went on to work for HUD, specializing in urban planning in Alabama, and then received a Master's in Urban Administration and joined the staff for HUD regional assistants covering southeastern states. While he had his home in Atlanta, Georgia, he had a major impact across multiple cities and communities.

Tim was a man of many talents and he had a tireless drive to help others live a better life. In the course of his work he received 11 special achievement awards, including: Outstanding Young Men of America, Who's Who U.S. Executives, and Community Leaders of America, to name just a few. In 1983 he became Director of Regional Housing Program Operations for the southeast, managing 800+ employees in 8 states. In 1987 he moved into the private sector managing a diverse real estate portfolio over 6 states from low income to luxury apartment units. In 1992 he started his own consulting firm, Profit,Inc., focusing on low income and public housing. In the process he assisted in 3 key initiatives:

(1) Providing families with first class housing,

(2) Establishing Community-wide Code of Conduct standards to eliminate tenants who disrupted and degraded other's living environments,

(3) Creating free after-school care and enriching field trips for the resident children. This improved the living conditions in several thousand run-down living complexes.

These initiatives led others to adopt his model and have spread to multiple metropolitan areas. Tim made a huge difference to countless lives.

Tim was happily married for 37 years to Virginia McLaurin, who passed away from lung disease. They loved to travel extensively in Canada, USA, Europe and Mexico and collected books, art sculptures, (especially of glass), as well as decorative swords and knives. He loved his classic cars and enjoyed restoring them and taking them to classic car shows. He also owned 7 rescue dogs over the years and was a member, sponsor and contributor to a variety of groups dedicated to environmental and animal conservation efforts.

He stated that one of his greatest life achievements was to have met his second wife, Dianna Gammill and that they enjoyed the best time of their lives, sharing their adventures together to the fullest. Dianna passed away in 2023 after a brave battle with cancer. Tim is survived by his brother, Thomas Raines and wife Julianne, nephew Joshua Raines' family and niece Jessica (Raines) Christenson's family. He is also survived by his wife's family, her sons Patrick McShane and Christopher McShane, grandson Wilson McShane, nephew John Thornton, Jr, his mother-in law Virginia Gamill and her sister Gailyn Thornton.

There will be no public service to attend. The loss of his shining light dedicated to making lives better will be felt by so many and he will be deeply missed. One of his mottoes was “To give is to receive”, so to honor this remarkable man's life, please consider sending a donation to a Cancer Center near you or to one of his favorite charities as a memorial in his name:

NATURE CONSERVANCY

VITAL GROUND FOUNDATION (protects wildlife habitat)

BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY