I am so excited! I’ve got this incredible opportunity to join an amazing group of people on a trek to the Everest base camp . . . how did this come to be? I received an anonymous email regarding the Love Hope Strength Foundation and it turned out that I knew the sponsor, Peter Braun. I was like, “I know this guy”! As I read further, I realized that this is an organization I would love to be a part of. I called LHSF and spoke to Shannon Foley inquiring whether they had space available on the trek. I was in luck, someone just backed out and they had an opening. What a whirlwind! I learned of this excursion on September 19th and made a decision to join on the 21st! Good thing I’ve been training for the Chicago marathon. The marathon is October 7th, I leave for Nepal on the 8th!

I am ardent about getting the word out about cancer awareness.
My first experience with cancer was when I was 8 years old. My 3rd grade teacher, Miss Schlect had Leukemia. Within the year that she was diagnosed, cancer had taken her life. Years later it entered my life again. When I was seventeen my grandma Maria was diagnosed with lung cancer, within six months she passed. Five years later Grandpa Ralph was diagnosed with prostate cancer, he went through chemo and was in remission, a couple years later it came back and he passed.

My passion for the outdoors started when I was a child growing up in Wisconsin. Many summers were spent in Prairie Du Chien canoeing down the Mississippi River, Wisconsin Dells, and hiking around Devils Lake. As an adult, my interests have evolved into much larger expeditions, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Torres Del Paine-Patagonia, Chile, the rice fields in Sapa, Vietnam, and others. Some of my other active pursuits are training and competing in triathlons. I competed in my first ½ ironman this summer, next year I am competing in WI ironman! When I am not traveling the globe and competing in triathlons, I headhunt for the financial markets.

This will be a remarkable journey…