About

I feel very fortunate on many fronts including Roots to Canopy.  My purpose:  to support organizations and people to grow and thrive by tending their roots and vibrantly contributing to the forest canopy. 

Over the course of 20+ years, I have consulted with a host of organizations including non-profit agencies, community groups, collectives, labor unions, foundations, government agencies, and multilateral institutions.  And I have coached – and convened -- many amazing people. 

Along with all that I learn from and with my clients and fellow consultants and coaches, I regularly call upon my experience working inside non-profit and education organizations.  I co-founded a youth training and leadership organization, the Young Women’s Project.  I was also on the public health education faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  There, I designed and taught courses in community assessment, program planning, program evaluation, and quantitative data interpretation and led a review of the undergraduate curriculum.  In addition I worked with an international development technical assistance agency and focused on agricultural and health initiatives in Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. Around the edges of all this, I have done quite a bit of community organizing and managed two successful local political campaigns.

I am an International Coaching Federation Associate Certified Coach, having trained with the fabulous and rigorous Academy for Coaching Excellence.  I frequently tap into my academic training, as well:  a master of public health degree (health behavior/health education) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  And I have co-published in peer-reviewed journals including the American Journal of Public Health, Environmental Health Perspectives, and New Solutions.

I am deeply committed to my own internal work – intellectual, emotional, and spiritual.  This interior-tending supports me to show up more grounded, open, clear, and joyful with my clients and in the world.  Other things I love:  water, dancing, books, live music, color, forest, photography, cooking, and gardening.

My home-base is wonderful Durham, North Carolina -- the lands of the Yessa and other First Peoples.  I work throughout the United States and beyond. 

To all my work I bring a deeply listening ear, curiosity and possibility, a creative and analytical mind, a host of innovative approaches, a valuing of meaningful engagement, a sense of humor, a love of people, a passion for equity and justice, and a commitment to mutually-defined excellence.