I am a retired Math teacher. I was born and raised in California and lived there most of my life. I am the second oldest of nine children. I can't say that I was an excellent student in elementary and high school, but along the way, I was given opportunities and learned to appreciate the value of education.

My educational background includes an undergraduate degree in Information Systems from the University of Redlands in California. I have also completed 24 graduate units of study in the Classroom Management Program at the University of La Verne in California. I participated in several summer institutes at the University of California San Diego and received a certification from the Algebra Thinking Institute. Additionally, I have a Master's of Science degree in Education specializing in Information Technology.

Before I was a teacher I was an engineer in the field of telecommunications. One of the highlights of this career was overseeing the coordination and installation of an atomic clock in Oakland, California. As a former engineer, I had to develop the habits of organized, sequential thinking and I think that these habits greatly influenced me in my second career.

As a teacher, I have taught grades 3 through 9. During my career I was repeatedly nominated by students as Site Teacher of the Year. In 2008, I was recognized as School Site Teacher of the Year and nominated for San Diego Teacher of the Year.

The teaching skill that I am most proud to offer as a tutor is my ability to connect with a student and make him or her comfortable enough to begin to want to learn a concept. I have a lot of strategies in my tool box and I am quite good at knowing which tool to use in a given situation. I am able to guide students to think critically and come to conclusions by following logical sequences of steps. Tutoring for me is absolutely the perfect job because I get a great deal of satisfaction from one-on-one interaction with a student and immediately witnessing their progress.

I'd like to tell you a bit about my hobbies and interests. My grown children and their families all live in California so I travel back and forth frequently. I enjoy traveling by car and am looking forward to driving to as many of the lower 48 states as possible. I am a bit of an audiophile and enjoy sound reproduction. I have a small collection of vintage McIntosh audio equipment. I mostly enjoy listening to jazz musicians live in local venues and at jazz festivals. I'm also good with electronics. I've built computers in the past. I've set up networks in my home and I'm good at troubleshooting and getting things working again. I'm most happy when I have a project of some type, either inside or outside of my home, to complete.