Thank you for visiting. The following “hello” bog is a small history of my work life and experience. Please visit the Welcome menu to learn more about my current professional roles.
I have worked for the past 45 years of my life (easy to guess my age now). My first job was at Beach Grove Stables when I was ten years old, shovelling horse manure, giving trail rides and then graduating to registering people for trail rides and collecting the funds for the rides. The position of money collector was a big promotion for a (then 12-year-old), and when I learned the correlation between hard work and money.
In my teens, I worked various jobs in the food service industry as a server and host, then landed a position as a coffee truck driver, selling and delivering food to hungry workers. I was very young when my entrepreneurial spirit was triggered, and I started my own business, eventually operating three trucks.
During my daily route, I was offered a sales position with Pacific Industrial Scale (Pacific), and in 1988, I started a career in Weights and Measures, where I would stay and grow with the company for 17 years.
Over the next two decades, we experienced many communication and technological advances from telex communication to several types of fax machines, one-way paging systems, cordless phones, car phones, and then large, clunky Motarolla cellular devices. In the early 90s, we got our first computer at Pacific that connected to email and “Mosaic,” which was described as a user-friendly way to surf the internet. At this time, I learned (self-taught) how to design and publish a website. Websites at this time were often deemed useless and a waste of time by the more senior staff. Nonetheless, I persevered in designing the Pacific website using a program called Microsft FrontPage.
My next role was as an account manager for building supplies. For several years I learned about the merchandising world and advertising and promotion, taking many courses to understand consumer behaviour and marketing.
In 2009, I was hired by a small recovery house to help develop the society where I am now the Executive Director. Westminster House Society went from 9 beds to 43 in under 13 years. My experience significantly contributed to the growth and success of the organization.
I am now a strong advocate for women, diversity, and recovery. I sit as the operating treasurer and volunteer for Recovery Day Vancouver Society – and since 2012, the street festival and recovery celebration has grown from 100 people to 100,000 people and is now the largest Recovery event in North America.
Through the years, I have had many achievements, including being a mother, grandmother, athlete and student. I have recently graduated from University and obtained my Masters in Business Administration. I still play softball and am learning how to play soccer this year.
