Mary Ann’s earliest experience with  computers was in college in the early ‘70s using keypunch cards (remember “do not fold, spindle or mutilate?”). In the early ‘80s she taught herself DOS and word processing when a terminal landed on her desk at The LA Actors Theatre in Los Angeles where she was writing grant proposals. She then became an “accidental trainer” teaching her co-workers in each subsequent theatre company to use the computer.

In 1990, she began volunteering for the Nautical Heritage Society and The Revenue Cutter Californian — the official Tallship of California — and in 1993 she joined the crew as the education officer for a year, hauling lines, singing sea chanteys, and earning a captain’s license. When she and the chef decided that they wanted to go to Alaska (but didn’t want to pay for it) they signed on with The Boat Company, where she served as chef’s assistant for two summers in Alaska’s Inside Passage. Her final summer in Alaska was spent cooking on Tugs running from Seattle to Nome.

Back in Puget Sound and looking for a shore-based job, she talked her way into a position with the Gates Foundation as a traveling Public Access Computer Trainer. For the next five years, she and her seven-pound Yorkie Watson flew to small rural libraries across the country (over 500 total) to set up donated computers and teach terrified library staff to use them so they could, in turn, help their patrons. 

When the Gates Foundation Library program concluded, Mary Ann went back to school at the University of Washington, earning a Masters of Library Sciences in 2009. For a time, she continued working at the Boat Company, maintaining their computer and database systems while moonlighting at the Olympic College Library.  Today, she enjoys working part time at the college library and helping people as a Tech Tutor with Digital Helpmates. 

In her spare time, explores the highways and byways with her three dogs in a gypsy wagon she built with a friend.