Professional Experience: Customer service, data entry, secretarial work, vendor work, warehouse, purchasing, volunteering/fundraising. Personal Experience: I am a mother of two wonderful children, a son and a daughter. My son is a survivor of an ABI. At the age of 4yrs old he contracted viral encephalitis which caused seizures. The seizures caused significant scarring and shrinkage to his cerebellum. The resulting damage to his cerebellum has left residual problems to his memory, cognitive functions, processing, some speech impairments, behavior and emotional issues and mild physical issues. According to our first neurologist with the damage he has he should be quadriplegic...but he is not. He got very, very lucky. He is now 19 and for the most part is a normal teenage boy. Loves video games, skateboarding, riding bikes etc. He went from being dismissed by the his junior high school as only possibly able to get a certificate of completion for high school to working his butt off and received his diploma and graduated with his class. What he struggles with daily is remembering things, some emotional out bursts caused by frustration, cognitive processing especially regarding anything abstract. Due to the fact we live in Casper, WY and the lack of pediatric specialized help here, it took over 10 years to finally get him the help he's needed. Without the help of the Brain Injury Alliance of Wyoming and in particular its director Dawn Lacko I would still be spinning my wheels trying to get my son help. They are the reason why I began volunteering and devoting what time I could to help spread the word about brain injury, the organization and help other families not have to go through the same struggles and frustrations I did. I remain hopeful and optimistic that with proper therapy and help he will have a chance at a normal life.