Hometown: I was born in Evergreen Park, Illinois, and then lived on the south side of Chicago until we moved to Dubuque, Iowa, when I was 13.

When did you join UMRA? In 2015, as soon as I retired. I wanted to stay connected to the University, and UMRA seemed like a good way to do that.

What was your very first job? I worked at Dairy Sweet in Dubuque, a franchise owned by some friends of my parents.

What drew you to the University of Minnesota? With my master’s degree in college student personnel administration, I was able to land a job advising programs with students at Coffman Memorial Union.

What was your occupation when you retired from FT work? I was coordinator of leadership development for the Leadership and Talent Development department within the Office of Human Resources. One of my primary assignments was coordinating the President’s Emerging Leaders program started by Carol Carrier in 2002.

What is the Art of Hosting? Art of Hosting first took hold as a group of global facilitation practices in the late 1990s to early 2000s. In 2011, the first training took place at the University of Minnesota sponsored by the Center for Integrative Leadership at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. I found the Art of Hosting modalities to be quite effective in supporting small group conversations that fostered diverse viewpoints coming together in a civil atmosphere.

If you were competing in the 2026 Winter Olympics, what would you like your sport to be? I think curling would be the safest.

How did your role as UMRA quizmaster come about? In 2021, Jan Morlock asked me to put together some quiz questions for the summer social, to capitalize on my time serving as the advisor/coach for the U of M’s College Bowl team from 1987 to 2004.

I have now served as quizmaster for three of the UMRA socials. I base my questions on the pub quiz style used by the local organization Trivia Mafia, which supplies questions and hosts for bars and restaurants throughout the Twin Cities and suburbs, and is expanding nationally.

In writing the questions, I realize that not everyone is going to know the answer to every question, but, given 6-8 people per team, I hope that someone in each group might know the answer to most questions. I think it’s appropriate to include a few hard questions. In 2024, the winning team got four questions wrong out of 56. That seems about perfect. This past summer, the winning team had eight wrong. That’s probably a little too hard. I think it’s very important to make the questions fun. I especially like the questions that ask participants to identify people or things in photos.

What is something else you currently enjoy doing with your time? I’ve been working on a memoir for eight years that I finally self-published this September, Two Roses: Engaging and Healing during Personal Crisis [available from Amazon]. That’s been a lot of work, but also quite gratifying. In addition, I really enjoy my daily walks, listening to live music, and playing pub trivia.

What is a fun fact about you that we might not know? In 1983, I was a founding member of the Colder by the Lake comedy troupe in Duluth. I was looking for something fun to do during the cold winters there.