In the beginning, I was born and raised in the Panama Canal Zone, (which no longer exists thanks to former President Jimmy Carter's signature of the Panama Canal Treaty in 1977); I left my family in search of all the things a junior college dropout is looking for, you know - life, liberty and the pursuit of a job!

A small town in Kansas provided me a position as a payroll clerk for a manufacturing company. This didn't last long, because I became pregnant with my first child - and apparently this company hadn't heard that they could face legal consequences for firing a woman because of a pregnancy. I quickly found myself assuming the role of a naive, young, stay-at-home mother. Quite happily, that is, until my first husband and I realized we could never hope to give our young son anything we dreamed of without additional sources of income.

I went back into the workforce as a clerk-typist at the headquarters of a large insurance conglomerate. Worked up to a secretarial position for one of the company's vice-presidents, then jumped ship to work at the new drug manufacturing/packaging facility that moved into town paying big bucks to all! That provided me with my first bite of corporate realities, as within five years time, I experienced a forced layoff, and a volunteer layoff, with ultimately no recall to work.

I transitioned well, however, bearing two more sons, became a state licensed family daycare provider, so that I could stay at home with them. Partway through the twelve years in the childcare business, I began to develop interest in learning html and the various intricacies of web design. Enveloped in self-study and independent web development, that interest ultimately transitioned to full time employment with an internet service provider as a web design consultant. However, a year later that company was sold off and my position was eliminated.

In the middle, I relocated to the beautiful state of Wisconsin, and began one year consulting contract as the webmaster for a software company in Milwaukee, WI. At the contract's completion, I did a stint as a Technical Support Representative with a regional premier internet service provider, but after a mere eighteen months of employment, the entire residential customer service operations were moved to Michigan. I did not go with it.

Looking for another job, the résumé was updated, and the search began. Out of work almost a year to the date, I began a position as Administrative Assistant in the office of a 30-year family-owned company that designs, engineers, tests and certifies low voltage life safety systems. There's a great bunch of folks there, (well except for one), and I'm hoping this is the 'last stop'. At this update, I've been with them over four years.

My family consists of a remarkably funny, talented, intelligent, and compassionate "Mann", whom I came to know through 'working' together in the Netscape Champions volunteer user support newsgroup program. He became my best friend and my last husband! Our recent move to a home in a suburban area near Milwaukee, has brought us both within reasonable distances to our jobs; leaving us more time together, and for our two golden retrievers, Cisco and Cooper, now seven and five years old; as well as our fixation with HDTV and TIVO.

Throughout, I've raised three golden retriever puppies as a foster "puppy raiser" for KSDS Inc., an assistance dog organization in Washington, KS. Together, my husband and I have provided temporary care to a handful of dogs for the breed rescue group that we adopted our Cooper through, but have not returned to service dog raising. I titled my first two dogs in AKC obedience, one in UKC Agility Championship, and both were active Therapy Dogs.

Holding the office of Secretary for three years at the Hutchinson Kennel Club, (KS) I also volunteered as instructor/assistant of the pet dog/puppy obedience classes. The club's biggest event is the annual Sunflower Cluster dog shows in Wichita. I was looking forward to becoming involved with the dog training community in this area as well, but as yet have not done so, though I have continued working in web design in my free time, as Kath's Kreations, as well as donating my services designing, revamping, and maintaining various dog-related websites, the As Good As Gold website, being the only one live, and current at this point.