After receiving my Bachelor of Science from Oregon State University, I planned to become an environmental educator. I worked at the university for a professor proofreading and editing the book he was writing at the time, Two Paths Toward Environmental Sustainability. Shortly after graduating, I moved to Hawaii and began pursuing my Master of Science in Natural Resources and Environmental Management. While there I taught at the local nature center. My husband served in the Navy so I picked up a camera at this time and started with landscape and nature photography.After graduating from the University of Hawaii, I moved to Washington State and took a job with the Snohomish Conservation District performing land use surveys, leading volunteer tree plantings, and teaching environmental education programs in the local schools. Shortly after welcoming our first child into our family I transitioned into a stay-at-home mom position and remained there for the next 15 years. While focusing on raising my children, I strengthened my photography skills and opened up my own portrait photography business. I grew to have hundreds of regular and new clients each year and offered one fundraising event every winter to raise money for my children's 5th-grade outdoor overnight camp program at their school. During this time we also licensed to be a foster family and provided a safe landing spot for 13 children to begin to heal from the trauma of being removed from their homes.When the coronavirus pandemic hit, my husband took a job that moved us to California. In our new home in a very remote town, there is a severe shortage of teachers. I applied to substitute teach at my youngest child's elementary school and was immediately hired to long-term substitute for a third-grade classroom for the last 3 months of the year. The next fall I was recruited to teach an 8th-grade science class that had been without a permanent teacher for the last several years. I am currently in a credentialing program at National Univeristy while finishing the last months of the school year with these 8th graders and am loving connecting with the students and teaching my favorite subject. I hope to be in the same position next year and am working hard towards making that happen. Because they are two of the most important qualities, I am an honest and trustworthy person who will work hard to do what I say I am going to do. I enjoy engaging in relationships with people and creating beautiful things, whether that be lesson plans, photographs, websites, friendships, or otherwise.
Listed skills include Photography, Digital Photography, Portrait Photography, Event Photography, and 17 others.