Although a native San Franciscan, I grew up in Arlington, MA, just outside of Boston.  

The oldest of three children (my brother Tom is 4 years younger than I, and my sister Sheila is 13 years younger), I attended 12 years of Catholic schools in Arlington and North Cambridge.  In 1962 I moved to Washington, DC where I did my undergraduate work in linguistics at Georgetown University and graduated Phi Beta Kappa.  

Following a year in graduate school on an NDEA Fellowship at Yale in New Haven, CT., I attended the Naval Officer Candidate School in Newport, RI where I was commissioned an Ensign in the Navy.  As Communications Officer on a minesweeper (USS EMBATTLE, MSO-434) home-ported in Long Beach, CA., I did a tour of duty patrolling off the coast of Vietnam.  Just before my discharge I spent several months in-country, as Executive Officer of a Minesweeping Squadron on the Mekong River, near the Cambodian border.

In 1970 I moved back to San Francisco and started my first professional job as credit/administrator for an insurance company.  After a 14 month assignment in Honolulu in 1972-3, I returned to San Francisco where, on October 18, 1978, I became a "Friend of Bill W."  

On Halloween, 1979, I started a year's sabbatical, traveling westward on a Pan Am 'round-the-world ticket.  Following visits to New Zealand, Fiji, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Thailand and India, I landed in Paris, France in January, 1980.  After several months I was offered an opportunity to remain in Paris as a training consultant.  I'm bilingual (French-English) with some college-level German capabilities, as well.

At the end of 1984, I returned to San Francisco as an independent training consultant.  Two years later I re-joined the corporate world, first as a public relations specialist and then as a training specialist.  I'm currently facilitating workshops on Diversity and Sexual Harassment, but have expertise in Leadership, Teambuilding and Executive Development.

In early 2001 I moved to Palm Springs, CA.