Local Residents: Meet Lauralee Westine

Lauralee Westine may not be as well known as her spouse, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, but this attorney and mom plays a big role keeping her high profile family's life running smoothly, while also maintaining her own career.

Westine's wide variety of talents includes everything from dealing with land use issues at her law office; to getting her youngest daughter Lauren, 6, ready for school and making sure she makes it to guitar lessons, swim practice and all that other kid stuff; to taking care of the family's three dogs, one cat, two guinea pigs and three hermit crabs. 

Westine, who is 41, appears to manage it all with an easy going, common-sense attitude and a lack of worry that can be helpful on those days when things don't go as planned.

"Things are gonna happen and you just accept that things are gonna happen and it's okay. Tomorrow's another day and today may be a bad one and things may have happened, but you get up the next day and you move on," she says.

Westine says her own mother plays a supporting role in the busy family as well, which is especially helpful when she and her husband have jam-packed schedules.

"None of this would be possible without my mom and I can't say that enough. She has made it so the two of us can divide and conquer, where we have multiple events in a night. We can do it because of her… She joins me for breakfast every morning, we're lucky, I wouldn't trade her for the world."

Westine and Gualtieri have lived in Palm Harbor since the mid 1990s.

"I like living in East Lake. We're all pretty easy going… it's live and let live."

They also have two grown daughters whom they're very proud of. Jordanna, 22, graduated from FSU and works in advertising in New York. Christina, 21, is studying finance and sports management at FSU.

Here are 10 things you may not know about Lauralee Westine-

1) What was your first car? 

A hand-me-down station wagon

2) What is your all-time favorite book?

Jonathan Livingston Seagull 

3) What is your all-time favorite movie or song?

 Breakfast Club & St. Elmo's Fire. I haven't been to a non-kid's movie in 15 years!

4) If you have a smartphone, what is your favorite app?

Plants vs. Zombies, Angry Birds….. anything that keeps my daughter entertained.

5) What do you like most about Palm Harbor?

I like the sense of community.

6) If you could change anything about Palm Harbor, what would you change?

The direction that old Palm Harbor is going in. I would like to see these groups get together and work it out (in reference to downtown development issues).

7) What was your first job and what was the biggest thing you learned from it?

I worked at JC Penney in the home section down in Key West when I was interning at the State Attorney's Office…. I was 21 and I thought I literally knew everything. I was put in my place; sometimes politely, sometimes not so much. I learned how much I didn't know and not just about working at JC Penney, I learned a lot about life.

8) What are you most grateful for?

My family

9) What is one thing that most people don't know about you?

I have a secret talent. I'm very good at the Gallagher video game I've been playing it since I was a kid, it's an addiction for me.

10) What charity are you most involved with?

My dad's foundation which he started a few years ago, the International Foundation for Cranial Facial Disorders. I am working on that with him to help the foundation grow. Watching my dad and seeing how much pleasure it brings my dad to help these kids. We pay for the surgeries for the kids.

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