Silke Pflüger was born in Bad Arolsen, Germany on April 2, 1965, the only child of Konrad and Sigrid Pflüger. She was killed by metastatic breast cancer on December 31, 2022. After years of treatment, her liver failed and she died as she slept peacefully at home in Santa Cruz, CA, with her husband, Klaus Kleine, and her mother by her side.

Shy as a child growing up in Koblenz, Germany, Silke came into her own when she was one of only 30 women in a class of 600 undergraduate electrical engineers at Aachen University. She remained at Aachen to obtain a Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering, focusing on lasers. By the time she received her advanced degree, she had fully transformed into the bold and fearless woman known to all who met her as an adult; she literally “kissed Charlemagne’s ass” (a 17th c. bronze sculpture in the town hall) during the graduation celebration.

Silke’s love for her adoptive country began in 1994 while in Ann Arbor, Michigan for an engineering internship. It was there that she also met and fell in love with fellow visiting laser engineer, Klaus Kleine. They persevered through a long-distance relationship as Klaus worked in Wilmington, DE with DuPont, but secretly married in 1996 so he could obtain a green card. “Our parents were not amused when we told them 2 years later, after we bought our dream house in California,” she said recently, with her classic dry sarcasm.

A stellar professional resume reflected Silke’s unique combination of intellect and a natural ability to manage people. She loved the community in the rarefied world of laser engineering, and moved from staff engineer up through the ranks of the industry, all the way to jobs as a corporate Sales Developer and General Manager. Despite her notable executive positions, her favorite job was when she worked managing a sales office with Klaus for a few years, “and we were each other’s best resource.”

Silke was the consummate leader; she could confidently and without hesitation ask anyone to do anything. Colleagues, friends and co-conspirators leapt to fulfill her requests, then felt improved by the experience. Her gift was to inspire others to purposeful, cohesive action in such a way that they not only stepped out of their comfort zone and learned, but they continued to carry the torch long after she moved on to her next endeavor.

In 2013, Silke was diagnosed with breast cancer. A firm believer in science, she made use of the most aggressive treatment available, and was declared cancer-free shortly thereafter. Her brush with mortality kindled an unbridled desire to make the most of life, and she then decided to shift focus away from her engineering career towards other passions.

In the years to come, Silke realized her dream and traveled the world with Klaus, enjoying gourmet food, great art and diverse cultures. One got only a glimmer of the scope of their adventures when Silke described her “friend” Brynne the kangaroo in Australia, her trip to China’s Harbin Ice Festival or their visit to the Taj Mahal. She could recommend a coffee house in Vienna or a noodle shop in Bangkok with equal panache, and authoritatively advise buying tickets either for Burning Man or her favorite Wagnerian operatic cycle, Ring of the Nibelung. A talented artist and athlete, she shared eye-popping photographs of all her travels, crafted wonderful home spaces and innovative crochet works, and bravely pursued skiing and mountain biking (both learned as an adult) into her final months.

Following the 2016 presidential election, Silke drew on the leadership skills developed in her corporate life and took on a famously successful political organizing role. She decided that she could affect the most change in the politically conservative area around her second home in Truckee, CA. Among numerous other efforts, she co-founded Tahoe Truckee Indivisible and in 2019 ran as a Democrat for State Senate in CA District 1—an act of true courage for a first-time candidate, being a liberal, foreign-born woman with a thick German accent running in the most extreme right-wing corner of the state.

Devastatingly, cancer reappeared in Silke’s body in late 2019 in the form of a metastasis on her sacrum. She still wanted to squeeze every drop of beauty and love out of life, however, and she gamely embarked on a three-year journey through both state-of-the-art clinical trials and traditional treatments. The ensuing roller coaster was immeasurably challenging, both physically and emotionally, as she endured grueling regimens with a vast array of side effects and the terrifying scans for results afterwards.

Silke was compelled to use her experiences to help others, and she forged ahead as an activist in the cancer space, deftly utilizing social media to amplify her voice. She volunteered with Project Life and was a Mentor for Newly Diagnosed MBC Patients. In August of 2022, she was proud to be nominated for and complete an intensive six-day breast cancer advocate training with the National Breast Cancer Coalition. Silke’s willingness to openly discuss her disease and put her body through experimental treatments has surely contributed to meaningful social and scientific progress from which we will all benefit.

An inspiration to the end, she said in October, 2022, “What an awesome life I had!” She embraced the irresolveable contradiction of talking forthrightly about her upcoming death while at the same time shouting from the rooftops that she was mad as hell at this disease and didn’t want to die, didn’t want to leave behind her beloved Klaus and all that is beautiful in the world.

A memorial celebrating Silke’s life will be held in Truckee, CA in the spring of 2023, details to be announced at a later date.

Donations can be made in her memory to METAvivor.org or projectlifembc.com. Be sure to dedicate your donation to “Silke Pflueger” (available on METAvivor).

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