Anastasia “Sia” Georgandis, senior managing editor for several publications for Baltimore-based Stansberry Research and a resident of Mount Vernon, died July 31 of cardiac arrest at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia.

She was 31.

Ms. Georgandis had been attending a conference in Vancouver, and was in a line at Vancouver International Airport on July 30 waiting to board a plane home when she was stricken.

The daughter of Elaine Georgandis, a civilian U.S. Defense Department worker, Anastasia Georgandis was born in Baltimore and raised in Timonium.

“She was a special little girl right from the beginning,” her mother said. “She had an enthusiastic, effervescent personality.”

Ms. Georgandis graduated in 2003 from Dulaney High School, where she was a reporter for and later editor-in-chief of The Griffin, the school's newspaper. During several high school summers, she attended journalism camp at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind.

Her love of journalism led her to enroll in the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland College Park, where she studied for a year.

In 2004 she entered Deree College, a division of the American College of Greece in Athens, and in 2007 received a degree in mass communications.

In the 1990s, her mother's work involved travel to the U.S. Embassy in Athens.

“That's where Sia got her love of Greece,” her mother said. “It was like a second home to her.”

Being bilingual led Ms. Georgandis to a job with NBC during the 2004 Olympics working in staff support, her mother said. In 2008, she joined Phillips Investment Resources in Rockville, where she worked until joining The Sovereign Society in Delray Beach, Fla., as an editor in 2010.

In 2011 she began working at Stansberry Research, a subsidiary of the company Monument & Cathedral. There she was a senior managing editor and worked with writers and editors.

Ms. Georgandis was responsible for overseeing three publications: True Wealth, True Wealth Systems and the Stansberry Resource Report.

“She was outstanding as an editor and she was truly an all-star for us,” said Charlie “Carli” Flippen, executive editor.

“She was very sensitive to a writer's voice and did not overedit, but at the same time, she was tough. She was always looking for blanket statements and inconsistencies,” he said. “She truly believed in producing the highest-quality work — no one believed in that more than Sia.”

Mr. Flippen described Ms. Georgandis as a “great friend in the workplace” and said she had such “an enthusiasm for what we do that it was infectious. She will be missed on our team and broadly in the company itself.”

It wasn't uncommon for Ms. Georgandis to be editing at 3 a.m. and sending emails to writers and editors. Because of her editing skills, Ms. Georgandis developed a loyal and devoted following.

“Writers loved working for her, and they were always lobbying me to keep her as editor of their products,” Mr. Flippen said. “She exuded such positive energy, people just wanted to work for her.”

Steve Sjuggerud, a partner in Stansberry Research, recalled Ms. Georgandis as being a “superstar editor … maybe the best I've had in 20 years of doing this.”

“She was a very unique person in our business. Sometimes people want to flee or hide from something but she always wanted to fix it,” Mr. Sjuggerud said. “She lived every moment 100 percent.”

“To me, the saddest part of this is that she was on this upward trajectory, and the great disappointment to me is that the real world will never get to enjoy who she was,” he said. “Somehow or other, one day the world was going to know her.”

In an email Mr. Sjuggerud wrote earlier this year, he praised Ms. Georgandis for being “engaged in what she's editing. ... She doesn't just suggest improvements … she finds how to improve it.”

He said she could hold listeners at any gathering spellbound with her vast knowledge.

“My wife and I and two co-workers were having dinner with her the night before she died, and for three hours she kept the table with her knowledge. She was opinionated and had lots and lots of stories,” Mr. Sjuggerud said.

“She was just a lovely, lovely little girl,” said Anne G. Nelson of Timonium, a second cousin and Ms. Georgandis' godmother. “She was just beautiful and always had a sparkle in her eye. She was very bright and very inquisitive. She was a go-getter.”

She said her cousin exhibited excellent writing skills at an early age and was also an excellent athlete who excelled at soccer and basketball.

“She was an all-around young woman who enjoyed life and was taken away all too soon,” she said.

Ms. Georgandis enjoyed travel and was an avid reader who maintained an interest in political issues. She was accomplished at cooking Greek dishes, her mother said, and was especially known for her moussaka and lamb.

Plans for a celebration of life gathering to be held in October are incomplete.

In addition to her mother and cousin, she is survived by a sister, Christina Georgandis of New York City, and her maternal grandmother, Grace Georgandis of Davis, Calif.

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frasmussen@baltsun.com