Before the pandemic, I had been an elementary school Music teacher, beginning in 1999 in California and later in Georgia from 2001-2021. In California, I was an accompanist and organist at various churches, and with choral groups like the San Francisco Girls Chorus, Berkeley Community Chorus, and the chorus at the Orientation Center for the Blind in the SF Bay Area. In Georgia, I also taught piano privately at the Dunwoody School of Arts, worked on original recording projects (see Music),  and played blues and jazz locally, both solo and with The Electromatics and others.  More recently, I found a new interest playing and singing at assisted living homes where engaging with residents and folks in memory care has been some of the most rewarding and meaningful work of my life. Of course, the pandemic temporarily closed some doors, but that led to rethinking a lot of things . So I retired from teaching, sold our home in Georgia, and drove up to Michigan where we await whatever is next. 

As for my formal education, I graduated in the mid 1980s with a degree in Music from UC Berkeley. During my teaching career I received a Masters Degree in Creative Teaching through The Arts from Lesley University, and Level Three Certification in the Orff Music teaching.