"Hello, students and parents - and thank you for considering partnering with me.

I have been a full-time teacher in the past. It's what I wanted to be since I was very young. That's what I wanted to pursue in college, and so I received a teaching degree. Circumstances moved me out of the classroom long ago and thrust me into the business world. I learned quickly that even though I was no longer a teacher in a formal classroom in front of a bunch of students, no one could take the teacher out of me. I have never been satisfied with telling someone what to do or doing it for them. Sure, I can answer a question; anyone who knows something about a topic can do that. But I always wanted the person with whom I was interacting - whether it was a co-worker in the office, someone I was working with on a volunteer project in an area where I have some useful knowledge or my own kids - to learn how to seek the answer on his or her own. That's how people learn: By learning how to learn, how to research and to do things for themselves. I like to see that you learned something for yourself and more importantly, how to think something through. I believe that's where teaching and learning intersect.

I have always been a voracious reader. I recognize that not everyone is, but I love to encourage the habit of reading, researching and learning. My business career - actually, several different business careers - have always had me learning, in some cases, totally new skills in businesses that were totally new to me. My own natural curiosity, desire to learn and to succeed (after all, we DO work for money!) and willingness to learn and to work to achieve have helped me and shaped the person I am. That, in turn, has helped me in several careers as I have taught, trained and mentored people in several different businesses and industries. Sometimes the people were older than I am, sometimes about the same age, and sometimes younger than I am. I find that patience, encouraging others to succeed and sometimes, just having a good sense of" less...