Following Virginia Heidbreder’s desire for me to become a high school drama teacher attended the University of Puget Sound and the UW, started a dorm theatre group, but realized I was too young and too inexperienced in life to take on the awesome responsibility of being a teacher and besides, the bridle was a bit tight. Married Eugene Ruff (37 years ago) and we had David Michael Ruff, now 36, and only child. 13 years in Oregon where Gene got his first position in oceanography and where I finished college at Oregon State University in technical journalism. Science and technology reporter for The Oregonian for five years. Pulitzer nominee.

And then the big professional break when Gene got at offer from Battelle, a Boston-based consulting engineering firm. As Gene knew, I found my professional niche and opportunity to fill a lifetime in New England: Arthur D. Little and repositioning the 100-year old firm on an international basis and later recruited to the biggest PR firm in the world, Hill and Knowlton, to open the New England bioscience communications division. Boy, was this fun: senior account executive, vice president, senior vice president, international practice director for bioscience, general manager of H&K/New England and contributing to the birth and vicarious “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride” thrill of the birth of a new science, biotechnology that across the next 30 years would dramatically and fundamentally alter the delivery of medicine, agriculture and industrial processes. Back to the west coast via San Diego – it rained twice in 18 months – and realized clients were coming to me instead of to the firm I worked for. Started my own science marketing firm and counseled molecular biologists and agricultural chemists/entrepreneurs in starting and growing their biotech start-ups. What a thrill.

Back home to the Pacific Northwest 11 years ago following a 23-year clockwise life tour of the United States and combined my consulting firm with another, netting Milestones | the critical thinking company with business partner, David Gabrilska – www.thinkmilestones.com. Gene has been a benthic ecologist consulting to a broad range of public and private organizations, doing “worms” (polychaetes, actually) and loving every minute of it. These days I am a tri (military) service consultant in to the U.S. Army, Air Force and Navy assisting government and academic researchers who are awarded congressionally directed dollars to commercialize their biomedical technologies so that their inventions can benefit warfighters, their dependents and civilians alike. Moms and Dads –  still living in their same homes when Gene and I were snot-nosed teenagers – are now in their 80s, healthy and wise.

On the road a lot (Chairman Elite on America West!), but oh-so intellectually challenged and STILL married to my high school sweetheart, my best friend.( Thanks for the introduction, Russ Wiecking!) Hello to Tina Oppelt, Bill Keesler, Peter Schindler – Marrying Sam – L’il Abner, Bobbi (Agnes Tomorrow) Oltman. So long ago, but so formative that I can see the connections that bridge the decades. I may have let you down Virginia Heidbreder by not pursuing drama from the perspective of a high school drama teacher, but I like to think that the curiosity you nurtured has been invested wisely.