I attended The University of Akron starting in August, 1989 as graduate student in Indsutrial/Organizational Psychology. Although I was a graduate student in the Psychology Department, I had an assistantship in the Mathematics Department, where I mostly taught mathematics to adult night students. The students admistted that they were afraid of mathematics, but said that I made it fun and interesting. Obviously, it made me love teaching even more. It was during those two years of being a mathematics instructor at the college level that I knew that I wanted to teach college mathematics.

Before I could finish my thesis, I received a "short fall" to go to Flight School in Fort Rucker, Alabama. With the help of the faculty and staff at The University of Akron and ESPECIALLY with the help of Dr. Roger Wiley who was my mentor, friend, and supervisor at the United States Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory in Fort Rucker, I finished my Master's Degree in December of 1996.