I'm proud to be a fourth generation American. While I was born in Oregon I spent very little time there in my youth. When my father came back from his tour of duty in the Korean War, he returned to farming. He dreamed of owning a large ranch someday and since he knew farming wouldn't yield the returns he needed fast enough to realize his dream, he began to supplement his income as a miner. It wasn't long after he started mining that he realized there was a lot more money for those who mined uranium so he sold the farm and moved his family to uranium mining country.

Dad's first exposure to uranium mining was in Colorado, followed by Utah, and then New Mexico. We moved to Ambrosia Lake, New Mexico when I was nine. We lived there for three years before moving to Bluewater Lake where Dad got into the boat business while working for Homestake Mine. Our family has a long history of making play out of work. Some of my happiest memories to recollect are from the days when we lived at the lake.

I spent most of my childhood in the Uranium Capital of the World -- Grants, New Mexico. When I graduated from high school there, I could hardly wait to leave town to head for college in Southern California. After spending so many years in a small town, I was determined to spend the rest of my life in a big city and L.A. was happening at the time.

After attending college in Southern California, I worked for an international CPA firm in the One Wilshire Building in Downtown Los Angeles. It was in the elevator of that building I met my future husband. I would not date him as long as we worked for the same employer so it was almost a year after our first meeting before our relationship began. When he left the CPA firm to go into private industry I invited him to a party at my place. A month later he asked me to marry him and three months after that on October 5, 1974 we were married in the Angeles Forest on Angeles Crest overlooking the L.A. basin.

Shortly after my husband earned his CPA certificate, we left the smog in L.A. to make our home on the Oregon coast. I opened up my fired glass manufacturing business there and he launched his first CPA practice. We spent a little over a year on the Oregon Coast but the weather was just too damp and cold for us to enjoy staying there the year round. So, when my husband was offered a job opportunity in Central Oregon, we moved there. We settled in Bend, Oregon where I continued running my own business and he worked for a major recreational real estate developer. After two years with the developer, my husband bought an escrow company and opened another CPA practice which he ran for a couple years while I continued to grow my glass business. My shop was located in the light-manufacturing district in Bend and it was there that a friend convinced me to sell real estate in addition to running my business.

To this day, our favorite spot in America continues to be Bend, Oregon. It's a lot like New Mexico. We never wanted to leave but in 1980 the bottom fell out of the wood products industry and collecting from clients and customers became rather difficult. A CPA firm in New Mexico called one day and offered my husband a position, and the next thing I knew we were moving to Albuquerque.

I have lived in Albuquerque with my husband since 1981. We had not been in our first home here for more than a month when I found out I was pregnant with our one and only child. Today I am the mother of a young man, experiencing all the trials and tribulations of adulthood. My son graduated from high school in 2000 and attends college off and on. I pray every day he will stick with school until he graduates.

I'm the kind of person who thrives on doing something worthwhile with my time. When I'm not deeply entrenched in paying assignments, I am active with a variety of volunteer projects. In 1995 I put the world's largest ballooning event on the Internet. Working with a team of volunteers for over six years, we built the largest, most popular porn-free web site in New Mexico. After the first year, I continued to provide my services to the Balloon Fiesta® as a paid contractor as well as a volunteer. It was never a profitable business project for me. In 2001 the event lost its title sponsor. By 2002 several other sponsors backed out and I had to make some strategic decisions for health and financial reasons that resulted in my moving on to more profitable business opportunities and other volunteer projects.

A few years ago, I became active in my neighborhood association and ended up on the Board of Directors for the Albuquerque Block Captains Association. After a year I resigned. I helped start and also served as Chairperson of the E-Commerce Advisory Council for our local community college from 1999 through 2002. In 2001 I was asked to serve on the board of directors for the New Mexico Internet Professionals Association. I had only served half my term when I had to resign to deal with more important family issues. Today, most my volunteer time is focused on building the American Karaoke Guild, an organization focused on promoting the karaoke music entertainment industry.

I also enjoy dabbling in a wide variety of hobbies when I'm not working. In case you are wondering what I do in the rest of my spare time, well... when I get some, I'll let you know.

My Heritage | My Life Story | My Work | My Hobbies