Carrie McLaughlin and Kristian Takvam, coworkers who lived in Northern California, were on the Conception, which was anchored in Platt‘s Harbor off Santa Cruz Island when it became fully engulfed in flames as passengers slept below deck.

They both worked for San Francisco-based Brilliant, a website that creates interactive science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses. McLaughlin was a senior software engineer and Takvam was vice president of engineering.