Patty Reed - President

Patty is one of the founding members of the Western Institute for Lifelong Learning and is an experienced lifelong learner. She attended courses at Duke Institute for Lifelong Learning when her mother, Betty Reed, was president of that organization. Patty and her husband, Fred Fox, have lived in Silver City for twenty-one years, and have raised two sons, Nathaniel and Ben. She is a licensed Marriage and Family Counselor and has had a private therapy practice for the last twenty years. She has been a member of the Silver Consolidated School Board for eleven years. Patty is a lifelong learner.

Kathie Gilbert - Vice President

Kathie moved to Silver City in 1993 from Mississippi, where she retired as a professor of Economics at Mississippi State University. She taught economics at WNMU, as well as served as Vice President of Academic Affairs. She is currently the Special Assistant for Quality Initiatives and University Ombuds at Western, and serves on the Board of Directors of Quality New Mexico. She is Alumni Examiner for the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award and serves as Consultant with the Datatel Center for Institutional Effectiveness. She is especially interested in working with other colleges and universities on their quality efforts. Besides being is vice-president, Kathie is in charge of Facilities.

Mary Ann Markus - Secretary

Mary Ann is a retired Reiki therapist and social worker who specialized with chemically dependent clients in the Seattle/Tacoma/Puyallup, WA area. Mary Ann also had a private practice and co-facilitated retreats regarding issues pertaining to women. After visiting Silver City since 2003, Mary Ann and husband made the permanent move to Gila Country during the 2007 Monsoon Season. They enjoy hiking, camping, traveling, and the abundant sunshine.

Linda Hannan - Treasurer

Linda is originally from Arizona. She retired from the Flood Control District of Maricopa County after 25 years. She served as Financial Services Manager at Flood Control for the last 10 years. She was responsible for the payroll, accounts payable and receivable, fixed assets and travel functions, as well as budget tracking and main audit contact. She and her husband Lee moved to the Silver City area from Tempe in September 2007. They had made many trips to Silver City over several years and decided that is where they wanted to retire. They both enjoy the outdoors, camping and hiking so it is the perfect place. Linda also enjoys doing several crafts and learning new ones at WILL classes.

Linda Kay Jones - Community Liaison

Linda Kay was a Texas executive recruiter until 1984 when she moved to Silver City intending to stay just one year. She served twenty-one years as director of the Silver City Grant County Economic Development Corporation (SIGRED), five of which she also was Chamber of Commerce director and sixteen of which she also served as director of the Small Business Development Center at WNMU. She is now with Western as a special presidential assistant for institutional advancement, economic development, and community relations. She and her husband, JP, have five children and eight grandchildren and love to golf, entertain, cook, and just try to make a difference.

John Lawson - Curriculum Committee Chair

John retired to Silver City in 2004 after a 33 year career in medical research at the University of Utah and Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco and product management and clinical trials for small companies - Thoratec, Myocor, HeartPort - and large - Johnson & Johnson, Baxter International. He has degrees in history from the universities of Montana, Iowa and Utah. John has lived in China, Ethiopia and France. He has taught in schools in Lekempti, Ethiopia, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City and at WNMU as well as in hospitals in Asia, Europe, Australia and the U.S.. He and his wife, Judy have facilitated courses in French, middle eastern and Islamic history and medical research for WILL. John is a member of the WILL curriculum committee and a board member of the Friends of the Library and Casa de la Cultura.

Mary Burns - Marketing Chair

Mary Burns arrived in Silver City this past September as part of a gypsy journey she's been on for more than a year. After selling her home of 20+ years in Colorado Springs, where she raised her two sons, she has embarked on a re-education & re-creation of her life, with a truck, a travel trailer and a labrador in tow. Solar Energy International provided courses in photovoltaics and sustainable building and then recently she completed an internet marketing program through the U of San Francisco. Mary is now building a business which helps clients with Web site development or clean-up, marketing campaigns, search engine optimization and social media. Though her college was in art design, her career has been in sales and marketing for more than 25 years, mainly in healthcare and software. She did let her entrepreneurial spirit and latent artist get the best of her by starting a faux painting business in Colorado Springs six years ago which she wished she had started when she was 30 years younger. Mary plans to continue building her marketing business, and build or restore a sustainable home.

Bill Baldwin- Financial Advisor

Bill is originally from Massachusetts, where he graduated from Harvard College with a B.A. degree in Linguistics and Near Eastern Languages. He is a U.S. Navy veteran, and also served in the Middle East as a United Nations military observer. He received an M.S. degree from Simmons College in 1988 in Library and Information Science. He had a career in international banking and has traveled extensively in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. He and his wife, Caroline, have three adult children and three grandchildren. They have lived in Silver City since 1994.

Jeannie Miller - Membership Chair

Jeannie Miller moved to Silver City three years ago from the Phoenix area where abundant lifelong learning opportunities were available through the Maricopa Community College District. She has taught several different courses for the Estrella Mountain Community College program. With degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona, Jeannie had a thirty-year career in information technology management. She participated for many years in community theatre, radio theater, and readers' theater, as well as teaching academic courses for the community college district. In Silver City, she has both taught and taken WILL courses and is active with the Gila Writers expressive writing group. With her husband Glenn and two dogs, Sandulik and Pantouffe, Jeannie enjoys living at the edge of the Gila Wilderness.

Helen Lemal - Registrar

Helen moved to Silver City from Raleigh, N.C. when she retired as a Physician Assistant in Family Practice. She grew up in suburbs of NYC, Philadelphia, and Chicago and got a BS-Ed in Chemistry from the U. of Wisconsin, Madison. After marriage she moved to Hanover, NH/Norwich, Vt., where she raised her four children, taught science, math in junior and senior high school and learned to figure skate, ski, play tennis, garden and take advantage of free courses at Dartmouth College. Helen joined the staff at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center to do research and clinical trials in Cardiology. After seventeen years in cardiology, she left to attend Duke University to become a Physician Assistant. Her four children and eight grandchildren continue to keep her running around the country.

Lois Murphy - Social Chair

Lois moved to Silver City in August of 2004, having found it far more conducive to her laid back lifestyle than her first retirement location, Sedona, AZ. Brought up in Darien, Conn., Lois moved to Florida in the mid 60s and became involved in developing behavioral programs to aid community acclimation of developmentally disabled adults during the push for de-institutional care in the mid 1970s. In this role she also served on the Human Rights Advocacy Committee of District 7 for the State of Florida. A divorce and teenaged children forced a move from the non-profit sector to the corporate world where Lois developed and implemented a training program for the Customer Service Department of Templeton Funds (now Franklin Templeton). Recruited by AIM Funds in Houston, Lois brought her training programs to that company, retiring from AIM in early 2000 as Sr. Vice President, responsible for training, quality assurance programs and technical writing. While working in the mutual fund industry, Lois also served on the NYSE Continuing Education Committee. Lois' philosophy is that one should give back to community and sees WILL as an important and valued component of life in Silver City.

Mary Hotvedt - Grant Writer

Mary E. Hotvedt is an anthropologist and a family therapist and supervisor. After practicing for twenty-five years in Tucson, Mary and her husband moved to Pinos Altos where they have had a place for many years. Mary is the former president of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and a current foreign faculty member with an institute in Rome. She has also taught at the University of Arizona, LaGuardia Community College, and University of Illinois-Springfield as well as given many workshops here and abroad. Since retiring, she and her husband have spent time in Zambia as volunteers. Mary is enjoying writing a novel now and being actively involved in the community.