Luis Armando Ocharan

Luis Armando Ocharan passed away in the early morning hours of April 6, 2024 surrounded by family. Luis was born September 10, 1963 in Lima, Peru to Flor de Maria Ardilles and the late Luis Andres Ocharan. He and his mother immigrated to the US when Luis was 6, living in Pittsburgh, PA and Patterson, NJ where Luis went on to graduate Patterson High School and attend Willam Patterson University.

After working in IT and Finance in the design industry in NY, Luis decided to found his own consulting firm, CIELO Consulting, supporting international clients throughout the Americas and Caribbean. The recession of 2008 led to the closing of the firm and Luis going into independent contracting where he continued to work until his final weeks.

In 2017 Luis was diagnosed with Melanoma, already at stage 4. Though his initial prognosis was poor, he responded immediately and fully to the immunotherapy regimen and in just over a year of treatment was determined to be in remission. Unfortunately by 2022 his cancer had returned and was found in multiple sites. Over the next two years, he tried many different immunotherapies, chemotherapies and trial drugs, but none of them were enough to stop the cancer from ravaging his body and taking his life.

In the months prior to his initial diagnosis, Luis was inspired to begin working out and running 5ks. He had always enjoyed riding his mountain bike and road bike, which lead to competing in dual-athalons. He worked hard to overcome his aversion to swimming enough to complete in two half Ironman’s (Augusta and Chattanooga), and was hoping to complete a full Ironman. Additionally, he was honored to run in both the NYC Marathon and the Chicago Marathons. He had been scheduled to run in the Berlin Marathon in 2020, deferred to 2022, then 2023 and finally in 2024, but was too sick to be able to train for the races after 2020.

Through it all, he felt a calling to support other individuals experiencing cancer, which lead to him joining the Fxck Cancer Endurance Club, wearing their kits in most of his competitions. He had begun to work on his own YouTube channel, Beyond Stage4, but was left too ill from the treatments to do all he wanted to with this.

Luis never wanted his family and friends to worry or know how truly sick he was. Up until the very end, he was determined he would recover from this disease and would return to good health and his competitions. He retained a positive outlook and encouraged others to as well.

Luis is survived by his devoted wife Jeanine, children Lauren Hill (James) , Luis Anides (Stacy), grandchildren Skylar and Maddox Hill, brothers Juan Ocharan and David Ocharan (Jasmin), mother Flor de Maria Ardilles along with many aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews.

His passing has left his family heartbroken.