Dana Lee Greaves, 61, died November 5, 2025 at home in Ashland after a devastating battle with kidney cancer. In his final days he was supported and loved by his children, Parker & Leo Greaves; by his former wife, collaborator, and mother of their children, Karen Carnival; by his long-time business partner and dear friend, Jo Benson; and by the care of Asante Hospice. Dana is also survived by his sister, PJ Brenden; niece Tiffani Griffin and nephew Tyler Campbell; numerous grandnieces, grandnephews, great-grandnieces, and great-grandnephews who reside in Spokane, WA; as well as his Aunt Cindi Jameson and a number of cousins in greater southern Oregon.
Though Dana’s family had its roots in the Rogue Valley, Dana was born in California to Donald Greaves Jr. and Marilyn Jean Carley, joining his elder sister Pamela Joann (PJ) to round out the family. Dana’s father was a talented engineer who contracted with the US military and Dana spent his early years traveling through California and Texas with his family as his father’s contract assignments changed.
By his teens he settled back in Medford for a few years, where he divided his time between his cherished father and his grandparents, Donald and Lucille Greaves, who shaped the man he would become. His devotion to Don and Lucille remained constant throughout their lives – especially after Dana’s father died at a young age. Don Sr. taught Dana about fishing, woodworking, and the value of a dollar. They spent many a Sunday talking for hours, working on projects or going on drives.
Dana inherited his father’s technical acumen and interests. Even as a teenager, when most of his peers were barely aware how to spell “technology,” Dana knew he wanted to work in data and code. Those who know Dana know that he never did anything halfway – when he was on, he was on. He moved to Silicon Valley, elegantly sidestepping formal education in favor of a wunderkind dive into California tech, and never looked back. He moved to Mt. Shasta after he met and married fellow techie Jennifer Lindsay, and together they co-wrote a highly rated developer’s guide (which is still available on Amazon).
Eventually they divorced and Dana returned to Medford to help his aging grandparents and to found his first software agency. He built several small business iterations with different partners, always leveraging them into something bigger. Along the way, Dana met Karen while she was working for another tech company in the area. As the two companies began a process to merge the corporations, eventually forming the e-commerce company that became Vortx, Inc., they began another merger out of that period, marrying in the spring of 2005 and having two beautiful children, Parker and Leo, in subsequent years.
Jo came to Vortx, Inc. in mid-2005 and, helped by the talents of dozens of talented tech employees and colleagues along the way, joined Dana to realize his dream of building Vortx into an international ecommerce software company, which sold successfully in 2020. During that period, Dana’s inner developer came out in full strength – Dana was never happier than when he was geeking out. There were many things about running a business that gave him grief, but he was completely determined to look after his staff above all else, and they loved him for it.
Additionally, Dana was always interested in real estate and other business opportunities. He and Karen created a small property investment company where they bought, managed, and sold real estate. Dana also keenly pursued other business interests, and kept up to speed on investment trends and side ventures.
Although work was a primary focus for Dana, one of his other passions throughout the years included paragliding; he flew and competed in paragliding events around the world, with two favorite destinations being Ecuador and Turkey. The license plate on his Jeep read “I GO UP” because being in the air was the place he most enjoyed. He liked to tell the story of how he had once stayed in the air for an entire six hours. Dana was a fearless and adventuresome sport pilot, and he made many friends in the paragliding community as he learned one skill after another and tested the boundaries of flying in and above the clouds.
After more than a decade of paragliding, Dana took his flying passion to the next level and studied to obtain his private pilot’s license. In 2008, he bought a small plane and continued his training to become instrument rated, and even considered obtaining a commercial pilot’s license. He became a beloved member of the Rogue Valley Flying Club, joining its leadership and spending many hours with the pilots there.
But Dana’s biggest passion was his children, especially in his later years after retirement. Though Dana and Karen divorced in 2022, he remained a consistent, committed co-parent, sharing in family time, holidays, and special events. Parker is now a freshman at Emerson College in Boston and Leo is a sophomore at St. Mary’s School in Medford. Dana was always incredibly proud of both of them. Once Dana was a free agent and no longer tied to the daily grind, he consulted on a wide variety of small business ventures. More importantly, though, he was finally able to carve out time for what he liked to call “daily drift”, highlighting the importance of loving the things that he did. He spent many hours flying, traveling, driving, and just being with his family.
In the last couple of years, despite his illness, Dana made it a priority to make memories and took the children on trips – often in his plane – to experience theme parks, concerts, science lectures, colleges, and “just being somewhere else, standing on a streetcorner, watching the world go by.” We now imagine Dana doing just that from some street corner somewhere beyond our sight – so next time you are at a stoplight with a moment to spare, you could just give him a little wave and say “hey.”
