I have a long history with technology, It all started with my first Atari which led me to programming my Commodore 64 in grade school.  Ah, the memories!  My grandpa programmed for banks and the defense department when the interwebs were just a twinkle in Al Gore's eye, my dad did similar work for banks and express shipping companies.  Step-mom, yep same thing... I was thouroughly immersed in tech and had the gift to go with it.

Despite, or in spite of my aptitude I actually came to programming through a circuitous route.  I went to the University of Montana, Missoula, Montana and received a BA in Biology with an Environmental Emphasis (with honors thank you!).  I did a number of survey projects in Montana and Washington before getting hired on to assist the Bureau of Land Management doing Riparian Survey at their Medford Office.  I stayed with the job a couple years and ended up being responsible for programming the field computers and integrating and validating the survey data they collected. I taught myself to program C++ and do data queries during this time.

After my last season of collecting data I turned an eye on how I could use my newfound skills to pay the bills.  I saw an ad in the Mail Tribune for a company hiring in Ashland, Triad Inc., that sounded a lot like what I was already doing.  They hired me and put me under one of Microsoft's original 100 employees, Ellen Wright.  Triad (now Plexis) specialized in managed care software and encoding the logic behind medical claim adjudication and processing... what diagnosis codes go with which payment codes, who to pay, how much to pay, etc.  I ended up getting pretty deep into the Electronic Data Interchange side of things, eventually taking over lead on the team.

Plexis was a good opportunity to refine my abilities and my passion for technology suddenly became my career. My mother claims she always knew I would be a programmer. In any case, it was work I was well suited to and excelled at, eventually settling into the specialty of data analysis and systems integration. I expanded my skill-set into internet as I worked for Plexis, Bear Creek, Project A and eventually my own companies (Ashland Interactive, Rogue Data Vault, Oregon DataWorks).

I divested from these companies just after my thirty-second birthday to pursue personal interests. The change turned out to be well timed, as an opportunity to work for the City of Ashland soon followed and resparked the creative process I most enjoyed. I have enjoyed the chance to work with emerging business models and cutting edge technologies in health as part of my role at Asante. 

I’m proud to work for Asante and the terrific work our team does for the community each day. From the very beginning they have supported me as I first achieved my Project Management Professional Certification from PMI.org and then later my Executive Masters of Business Administration from the Charles Lundquist School of Business at the University of Oregon.

Today my role has shifted to the business side. As a Strategic Program Manager, I work hard every day as port of the Population Health team to help Asante and the Asante Health Network transition to a value based model of care delivery so the people of our region can receive the best quality care available in an affordable and convenient way.