Bio

I was born two days after Kennedy and Khrushchev came to enough of an agreement about the recently discovered Soviet missile installations in Cuba to avert a potential nuclear war. My earliest political memory was going door to door with my mom in Columbus, OH campaigning for the Republican ticket. Even in 1968 at the age of 6, I didn’t feel comfortable walking the clean suburban sidewalks and knocking on doors in support of the candidates who were all lined up neatly under Nixon. But the walking and knocking taught me about Democracy and the absolute necessity of being involved.

Truckee, CA has been my home since 1995. The road that led me here was long and circuitous. I was born in Rhode Island and lived in Ohio (twice), Indiana, Illinois, New Jersey (three times), Florida (twice), Boulder, CO (for college), Taos, NM, Bolinas, CA and finally Virginia, before landing here. After spending four years chairing the Citizen's Waste Management Committee, I decided to run for the Truckee Town Council in 2002, prompted by my desire to provide a voice for green/sustainability issues. I won the election and served as Mayor in 2006.

The majority of my career has been focused around raising awareness and fighting for the environment with a strong focus on the power of music to help get message across. My first job out of college (1985-1986) was coordinating a traveling troupe - The Green Revival Messenger Service - of poets (Gary Snyder), musicians and activists on tours around northern California spreading the word about the clear cutting of old growth forests.

After that my focus shifted to rainforest issues and I worked to engage high profile musical groups to take up the cause. Those efforts resulted in a series of shows at Madison Square Garden with the Grateful Dead, Bruce Hornsby and Suzanne Vega.

Merl Saunders started the Rainforest Band in 1990 and put out a great album soon after called "Save the Planet So We'll Have Someplace to Boogie."

I became the mother of twins in 1987 and was living near Taos, NM, where I helped launch that town's first volunteer recycling program and edited a grass roots newsletter focused around the relatively new concept of Bioregionalism.

Recycling and waste management issues became my focus from then on and has been the basis of much of my community organizing work since. I've devoted a tremendous amount of energy and time to environmental causes in Truckee including helping to launch the town's recycling effort (Keep Truckee Green) from 1999-2002; serving on the Tahoe Truckee Earth Day Organizing Committee (2003-2009), working on the Truckee Day committee (2005-2008) and launching a climate organization, the Truckee Climate Action Network, in 2006.

Since 2003, I've also been working as a freelance writer, editor, publicist, producer and consultant.

I'm a proud single parent of three sons...my most important and engaging work of all.