I grew up in a small city in Germany, right at the French border. My home state is marked by coal mining and steel mills but is also full of forests and small farms. My dad was an engineer and my mom a homemaker. After graduating high school, I worked an office job at a health insurance company but was unfulfilled. When an opportunity to study biology in Calgary came up, I moved to Canada to earn a degree. I loved studying biology so much that I decided to find a way to become a university professor. And when I had the opportunity to enter a PhD program at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, I moved to the United States and haven’t looked back since.

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After finishing my studies, I moved to Minot to teach biology at Minot State University. Minot was an attractive place for me because it had a proper winter, being of German origin was considered kind of cool, and I would be able to keep horses, my passion. The people here also were genuinely friendly and reminded me of home. I married, had a son who is now a teen, bought a small farm, started a hay and honey business, and became a citizen. I’ve been in Minot for over twenty years now and call it home.