I have collected rocks and minerals since I was a child. I grew up in northern New Jersey and remember going on trips with my dad to the Buckwheat Dump in Franklin and the quarries in Patterson. I still have the first specimen that I collected, it is a schorl tourmaline in mica schist found lying along the side of a road in Fishkill NY. My current passion is for mineral specimens from Romania. I also have sub-collections of specimens from Bulgaria and Dal'negorsk.

I am working on my fourth collection, I have assembled and sold two collections and donated one. From my twenties until my early forties I earned my living as jewelery designer, special order jeweler, gemmologist, and appraiser/valuator. I earned my Graduate Gemologist diploma in 1980 and my FGA in 1986. At the age of 43 I decided to go to college. Four years later, when the dust settled, I had earned a BA in American History and a MS in Environmental and Waste Management.

Currently, I am employed at a public research university working as a grant writer, program developer, and lecturer. One of my current projects is administering a large grant from the National Science Foundation to encourage more students to study subjects in the geosciences. As a lecturer, each semester, I teach a large class (180 students) on the topic of natural disasters.

I feel fortunate that at this stage of my life I am doing something that I truly enjoy. Other areas of interest are Inuit art, and collecting books and autographs of people who were/are involved in the exploration of outer space.