While growing up on a large Angus, dairy and grain farm in Northern Illinois, I often heard my mother remark that one day I would outgrow my penchant for blue jeans and horses. Fooled her! Here I am all these years later going to work each morning (usually in blue jeans) on a beautiful white-fenced Standardbred farm close to the shores of Lake Winnebago.

After graduating from Western Illinois University, my teaching career spanned a couple of years of high school English in Chicago. This was followed by several years overseas on Okinawa, Japan warding off typhoons, heat and bugs while teaching for the Air Force in a Quonset hut located in an abandoned POW camp. It was a great chance to see the world.

Returning Stateside, it was time to return to the "country" and a new career in resort property management. During my many years in Aspen, Colorado, then a sleepy little ski town, I owned my all time favorite horse, a beautiful chestnut Quarter Horse named Sundance. He had been a pony horse at the track and so was all flash. With us, it was hop up bareback, open the pasture gate and ride into the mountains.

On to Sea Pines Plantation on Hilton Head, SC, and a huge Thoroughbred gelding named Risky. I wish I had known then the things about horse behavior that I have learned since working here! Risky and I might still be in the same stall. Now I live in Appleton, WI (it's a long story) personally horseless but owned instead by an old gray alley cat and two Bengal kittens.

In charge of Customer Service and Sales for The Russell Meerdink Company, Ltd., I look forward to speaking with you and taking your orders.