I found my calling as a patent attorney after a well-rounded career in the automotive industry and academia. After five years at General Motors while a co-op student at GMI Engineering & Management Institute (now Kettering University), I worked as a research assistant in the Biomaterials Science and Engineering Laboratory with Dr. ChoKyun Rha at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where I graduated with my masters degree in polymer science in 1996. I then returned to automotive for about 11 years as R&D Manager at a tier-one supplier. My last two years there, I began attending law school at Wayne State University in the evenings while still working full-time and operating a small eBay business on the side for extra income. Then I made the big change in 2007, jumping from my well-established engineering career to a highly respected boutique intellectual property firm: Reising Ethington. I continued working full-time during the day at Reising while attending law school in the evenings. I was sworn in as an attorney in 2010, and in 2014 Reising offered to make me a shareholder of the firm.My previous experiences in the manufacturing industry and academia have served me well in the world of intellectual property, where I have a reputation for producing top-quality work product for our clients. Having been a small business owner and an inventor on several U.S. and foreign patents myself, I am easily relatable to inventors from all segments of industry. After 15 years at Reising Ethington, I now also devote significant time giving back to the profession by publishing articles on practical topics in intellectual property and serving as a mentor to incoming law school interns to help them get their feet on the ground and find their balance. I feel a duty to pass on all I have learned to the next generation of patent practitioners.