When I started my business in the 1990s, it was strictly as a graphic designer. Today, as I sit in my office, I am staring at a plaque from the Massachusetts Army National Guard thanking me for my “many efforts” on their behalf to plan and implement a national-scale celebratory event.

I count among my clients the National Park Service, Peabody Essex Museum, Harvard University, Emerald Necklace Conservancy, New England Law | Boston, and the Town of Ipswich, Massachusetts, whose 375th anniversary I helped plan and promote in 2009. I have served as the executive director of the Salem Partnership, Ipswich Historical Society, and Boston Women’s Heritage Trail. I got to “play” at the Massachusetts State House for the state humanities foundation as their first director of external affairs.

I am also a published writer several times over, the author of numerous articles on local history and culture, and the creator of women’s history walking trails including one in Salem, Massachusetts whose website also promotes woman-owned businesses.

I enjoy warm relationships with city/town, state, and federal elected officials and their staffs because of my public relations and promotional work. The same may be said of local media, dozens of community groups, civic, and business leaders. 

I have served on numerous cultural tourism and educational boards, including the National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites (currently), Essex National Heritage Commission (currently), North of Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau, Massachusetts Historical Records Council, and the Sargent House Museum in Gloucester as president.

“What a long, strange trip it’s been,” as The Beatles famously said, and yet, I have always followed my passion for history and found ways to use history for business purposes (or to entertain myself).

History and culture can be used effectively as economic engines, and I believe that engaging citizens in history — really engaging them — can only lead to good things.

Today, I tell people that I am in “the business of history.”

I do my own research and publishing, of course, but I also work with businesses, communities and organizations to help them use history as an effective marketing tool.

At the same time, I work with those who “do” history to help them promote themselves and their organizations more effectively.

Growing up in Concord, Massachusetts, surrounded by the ghosts of the “two Revolutions” has really paid off — the first, in the eighteenth century, involved separating from Great Britain for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; the second Revolution, in the nineteenth century, was intellectual, spiritual, and political, applying the ideals of the first Revolution to everyone. I really live this stuff!

My decision to attend Simmons College in Boston has also paid off. My first degree was in history and communications. My Master’s from Simmons, in communications management, really propelled me into new business areas that allowed me to use my talents more fully. Today, I host a blog for Simmons and I am a guest lecturer for the chair of the history department, Laurie Crumpacker.

With the opening of new decade, I am pursuing new business ventures that I couldn’t be more excited about.

Stay tuned!