Aloha!

I live in Hawaii Kai, Oahu, in a peaceful neighborhood that is flanked by Koko Head, which juts into the ocean, and Koko Crater, which features a challenging vertical climb on its southern side and a crater that houses stables for horses and a xeriscape garden. I write for a living. I’m a mom and a wife and those roles are the most important of all. I love living in Hawaii and raising my children here. I do what I can to keep Hawaii a lovely place by reflecting the Aloha Spirit in all that I do.

I grew up in Southern New Jersey and attended St. Peter’s School in Riverside, and Holy Cross High in Delran, class of 1976. I joined the U.S. Air Force in 1979, which took me to Texas and California before I was stationed at Hickam AFB in Honolulu in 1981. I’ve been in Hawaii ever since. I was a computer operator in the service, and worked on the first NASA Shuttle flights back in 1980 while at Edwards AFB in California.

Unlike many of my military colleagues, I embraced Hawaii and never wanted to leave. An avid swimmer and lifeguard, I learned to surf and windsurf, ate my first bites of sushi without flinching, and made many friends. When the U.S.A.F. issued my orders to Sunnyvalle, California, I opted for an Honorable Discharge and got a job working on the same computers for Kaiser Permanente. A few years later I took a casual clerk position at The Honolulu Advertiser, met my future husband, and finished college at the University of Hawaii at Manoa with a degree in journalism.

Not only did I work at The Honolulu Advertiser, I also worked as a business reporter at Pacific Business News. My short employment with agency public relations was disastrous, but, I learned enough to know how to do pro bono PR for nonprofits, just to help out and save them money because engaging a PR firm is expensive.