After high school, I went to Tufts University for a biology degree, thinking I wanted to go to med school.  I realized that wasn’t for me, so spent several years doing odd jobs (lab work, waitressing) living in Florida and New Jersey while figuring out my career path.  Being interested in preventing illnesses, I found out about Industrial Hygiene.  Yes, I know it sounds like cleaning machines, but it’s really about preventing workplace exposures to chemicals, noise, radiation, biological hazards, etc.  I went to UNC-Chapel Hill for grad school and then went to work for IBM in Binghamton, NY for 5 years.  They transferred me to Charlotte, NC and I worked for IBM for another 6 years. 

I met my husband, David, in Charlotte at contra-dancing.  I tell people that it’s like speed dating but you don’t have to talk.  We got married in 1990 and I had our son, Greg, in 1991.  IBM was moving out of manufacturing, so I found a job with Hoechst Celanese (specialty chemicals) in this area, and have worked for them (now called Clariant) since 1993.  I work part time, assisting 25+ plant sites around the country and travel a couple of times per month.  I’ve been active with my professional society and served as President this past year.  That allowed me to travel to occupational health/hygiene conferences in Mexico, Australia and England. 

When Greg was in middle school, he let me know that he wanted to home school for high school.  At first, I thought he was kidding, but then realized he was serious.  I researched it and decided that it was doable, with all the resources in our area.  It turned out to be a great experience for both of us.  I handled the math, science and history classes and sent him out for English and Chinese.  For his senior year he did dual enrollment at our local university.  He did well in the standardized testing and got a good scholarship to a small private liberal arts college in SC.  He’s double majoring in Chemistry and Chinese, and is planning to spend his junior year in China.  We are planning to meet up with him next June when that’s done and travel around for a few weeks.  I’m now thinking of helping tutor home school kids in math and science.  I also picked up tennis and singing in choir after I turned 50.