Charlotte has long had interest in populations who lack personal voice and depend upon a “three-legged stool” for support. This would be family, others directly involved with the person, and the wider community of organizations, researchers, and advocates.
While Charlotte cared for a parent in the end stage of Alzheimer’s, she was also researching and writing a book – her first – on this disease. When the book was published, she began speaking to caregiver groups, advocacy groups, and professionals. At the same time she was a teacher piloting a program for young gifted children. One door was opening, another was closing.
Passionate about the education of gifted children, Charlotte was a founding partner in a professional development business that spanned Washington and Oregon from 2000 – 2010. It offered consulting as well as a summer institute with graduate credit from a choice of two universities. Charlotte has also been a gifted program administrator in a large school district, president of her state professional organization, and she became an advocate working with legislators in Washington State. 
(picture is with Washington State Rep. Brandon Vick)
(picture is with Washington State Rep. Brandon Vick)When advocates in Washington worked with the legislature to include services for gifted children as part of their basic education in 2009, Charlotte knew there was work to be done to build an infrastructure for this. She wrote a grant to develop a regional network of professional developers throughout the state. When it was fully funded, Whitworth University offered their campus and graduate credit for the training Charlotte provided for the cadre in the summer of 2013. With half of Washington’s districts suddenly needing to start a program for its gifted children, Charlotte wrote a second grant to create an online document handbook to fill that need. It was funded by the University of Washington and co-written by Charlotte and Drs. Nancy Hertzog and Rachel Chung. The handbook went live in 2015.
Charlotte has also written and published a book and articles, through peer-reviewed academic publishers. She has won local, state, and national awards for her work. She lives with her husband and assorted pets on a forested creek bank in the Cascade Mountain foothills near Battle Ground, WA. [Charlotte’s Curriculum Vitae]