Linda E. Kay Herson

Jay and I lived 26 years in Houston, TX moving there in 1976. We really loved this quirky, gutsy "all-out" town and made a lot of wonderful friends there. I worked primarily in the Texas Medical Center as a research grant and/or program coordinator at Texas Women's University, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston Parkinson's Society (Director) and for the last 10 years at The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research (TIRR). My TIRR years were my favorite and most challenging years of work, where I wrote and developed a variety of educational materials for former rehab patients--spinal cord and brain injury, in particular. And wrote newsletters for the hospital and patients. I also volunteered for 10 years at the Hospice of Texas Medical Center.

My husband Jay is a biostatistician and after 7 years at M. D. Anderson, he formed a consulting company that concentrated on research in clinical trials for pharmaceutical drug development and FDA approvals. He sold his company to Westat, Rockvile, MD in 2002.

After we returned to the DC area in 2003, I happily retired. Now I'm enjoying classes in yoga, Feldenkrais (an awareness through movement program), returning to Israeli folk dancing, and taking painting classes. I also tutor 3 Asian students each week in English sponsored by the Literacy Council of Montgomery Co. Recently I began taking one-on-one French classes (Mrs. Post would be so proud!). Jay continues to consult and serves on several pharmaceutical Data Safety and Monitoring Committees for drugs being clinically tried.

Besides being committed "tourists" of DC and the local area, we travel a lot around the country mostly for fun, sometimes for Jay's meetings, and elsewhere in the world. In the coming year we'll be in Brussels (I'm signed up for a 2-week French Intensive course this time), followed by Amsterdam, later on to Chicago, Toronto, Southern California, and Maine (in the summer, of course!).

Since public school days:

B.S. degree from the U. of MD in Speech and Hearing
M.A. degree from Loyola College (Baltimore) in Counseling

Didn't work either as a speech therapist and for only a short time as a counselor for teens while living in MD!

Working on the Blade and Secretary of Student Council were great preps for jobs in my adult life. Especially meeting deadlines!