My Background

I have over 25 years experience in the counseling field and have worked for or with many local non-profit and for-profit behavioral health agencies in Alaska, including Fairbanks Counseling and Adoption, Turning Point Counseling Services, Samaritan Counseling, Tanana Chiefs Corporation, Fairbanks Community Behavioral Health, the Edgar Nollner Health Center in Galena, and the North Slope Borough.  With these agencies I have worked in both front-line and management roles.

As valuable for me as this experience has been, I think it just as important that I have also worked in many other fields, from being a stockbroker to a published writer to a small-business owner to even a metro bus driver in Seattle.  I find these experiences invaluable in helping me make sure the counseling I provide is practical and that it reflects the real world, rather than some appealing but imaginary version of how reality could or should be.

I've had a life filled with difficulties and challenges, as well as great opportunities and my share of success.  Much of my counseling comes out of what I learned in the process of going through those experiences in life.  For the vast majority of clients I've seen I've discovered that I have had similar experiences to theirs in my own life, including mental health challenges.  I know what it's like being the client, not the counselor.  I've found having actually gone through similar experiences to be a great asset in providing me the insight and understanding I need to be effective in helping.

Finally, I grew up focusing on being rational and analytical, and became very skilled at that, to the point of graduating with honors from Stanford.  Quite a bit later in life I learned how to become more skilled in accessing my non-rational, creative, and relational thinking -- and was somewhat blown away by how well it complements and completes the rational/analytical.  I utilize both approaches in counseling, and believe each provides great value to us (and, of course, each also has the capacity to badly mess us up as well).

My full VITA is attached under another tab in this section if you want further details.

Also is a tab to access my other interests -- I am an ice sculptor, artist, and former professional photographer.  Those also may help give insight into who I am.

The other occasional "members of the counseling team" are my two therapy dogs, who provide help primarily when I'm working with kids.   They are: