I was born in Kalamazoo, moved away at a year-and-a-half, and returned in 1980— after living in Vermont, upstate New York (K—undergraduate school), and Tennessee. Graduate school through the Teacher Corps at Oakland University brought me back to Michigan in 1974. After graduation I worked for four years as a special needs counselor at the Kent ISD technical center in Grand Rapids.
Since moving back to Kalamazoo, I’ve owned a number of small businesses specializing in organizational development, communications, graphic design, and printing—working primarily with nonprofit organizations. I’ve also served as executive director of two nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organizations, and on the boards of others.
In the 1990s, I developed professional development courses and served on the advisory board for the very exciting Center for New Media at KVCC. In the 80s and 90s, through involvement in GKUW’s allocations division and Leadership Kalamazoo, I gained a deep appreciation of the breadth and depth of our nonprofit sector and community resources. And—just for fun—gardening, involvement in the Master Gardener Volunteer program and Southwest Michigan Hosta Society bring me into contact with lots of happy people and happy plants—what could be better than that?
ONEplace @ kpl
I joined KPL on October 1, 2008 to lead the development and implementation of a brand new initiative: a nonprofit management support center for Kalamazoo County. The center is called ONEplace. The ONE stands for Opportunities for Nonprofit Excellence and for our goal of being the one place people can turn to for nonprofit information, resources, training, and referrals; and, to connect with new ideas, resources, and each other.
The opportunity to put my personal commitments, experiences, and expertise to work for this new center is thrilling. The opportunity to work with the wonderful staff here at KPL, community members and resources I’ve known for many years, and learn about and meet many new people through this work is equally thrilling. Together, we will build on the strengths and increase operational capacities of our nonprofit sector, which will, in turn, strengthen our entire community.