I have a life long love of the water and swimming. As a child I took swimming lessons and swam on a competitive swimming team for many years. Boating provided activities and entertainment most summer weekends with my family. I loved to water ski and snorkel. As a teen I learned to sail my own pram sailboat. In high school after becoming certified thru the Red Cross lifeguard program, I worked as a lifeguard at Caladesi Island State Park. In my twenties I took a job teaching swimming lessons through the YMCA while I attended college courses.
After working various jobs and dissatisfied with my career options, I gave school another chance and pursued a computer related technical certificate. While I was completing computer courses I found another part time job teaching swimming with a local private swim school and loved it. Once I completed my computer course work, I began working in computer technical support which I quickly realized was not the proper career choice for me. After enduring a year or so, I went back to my aunt and uncle’s retail chain for another post.
During this time, I began teaching swimming lessons every evening after work and on Saturdays as a part-time job, hobby, and a bit of exercise. Soon I found that I had more demand for lessons than I had time and that teaching swimming was tremendously more rewarding to me. So I took the plunge (literally and figuratively) and started my own business. In the spring of 2001, I officially began Making Waves.