My family roots are in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. My father's mother emigrated from Eidsvoll Verk in Norway, my father's father was a Swedish American, and my mother's parents emigrated from western Finland. I have a B.A. in Scandinavian Languages and Geography and a J.D. cum laude, both from the University of Minnesota. I taught Norwegian for one year at the University while a student and for several years as an adult education instructor in local schools. I worked for several years as a commercial insurance underwriter and then as a corporate risk manager. I practiced law for five years in employment law, environmental law, and criminal defense. For the last few years I was the executive director of a nonprofit organization providing environmental education, environmental service learning, and outdoor recreation programs to local schools.

Because Norway has advanced so far in Internet services, I am able to watch and listen to television and radio broadcasts daily from NRK (the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation), as well as read some national and local newspapers. This is very helpful in maintaining my language skills and in keeping current on events in Norway. And now SVT (the Swedish Television Company) is also broadcasting television over the Internet, in addition to the radio already available from Sveriges Radio. As a student I spent a great deal of time reading Norwegian source materials from the era when written Norwegian and written Danish were very similar. This experience makes translating from Danish almost as easy for me as working from Norwegian.

Like many Norwegians, Swedes, and Finns, I have a strong interest in outdoor pursuits. I was a search-and-rescue dog handler for seventeen years, and I am a lifelong nordic skier, canoeist, and backpacker.