When I grow up, I want to be…

When I was an undergrad at the University of Texas, after being quickly (and rightly) vetted out of the Pre-Med program, I decided I was going to grow up to be an Economics Professor. When I failed out of U.T. (yes! Did I forget to mention that I placed out of my entire freshman year of college with A.P. tests, then waterskied the entire 2nd summer semester and fall semester. I had to go to Austin Community College for a semester, then U.T. let me back in. Whew! ) Boy, did I shape up my game. I went from a .4 GPA to a 3.9 GPA with a ton of sweat and tears. So I graduated. I turned down a job offer from the IRS (can you seriously imagine me working for the IRS Foreign Income Statistics Division?) My mentor was Professor Alfred E. Norman in the Economics Department at The University of Texas, and he taught me that there was really nothing I couldn’t do if I put my mind to it. This may have been a dangerous thing to learn! He spotted my mathematical talents and love of Economics, so he helped me go straight to a PhD program from my undergraduate. Thank you, Dr. Norman! Another mentor at U.T. was Professor Kate Frost who taught me to ask those “Emperor’s Clothes Questions” in everything I do. Danger: I question everything now.

Graduate school for Cyndi? Not…

I aced the dreaded GRE (the Graduate Record Exam), just 10 points shy of a perfect score. I’m a good tester, my mother taught me well! This gave me the chance to go to ANY school in the world. Not one of my best judgment calls, I chose to follow a boy I was dating and go to Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Great school, sure! But it’s no London School of Economics or Chicago School of Economics…  So I was awarded a stipend to attend SMU. That meant they were paying me to go to school! I had to work as a Teaching Assistant for a couple of classes and have office hours, but otherwise, there were no other commitments except attending class and trying to do the mind-boggling homework.

SMU paid me to go to school, but it sure wasn’t much… The cliche “starving student” comes from reality.  So I decided to get a job to help with bills and started doing marketing for a little company in Dallas that did water purification for disaster sites. Cool people. Cool job. Marketing was so much fun. I fell in love with Marketing. It was so much fun, in fact, I decided to quit Graduate School and pursue a career in marketing, starting in Colorado (which was my favorite place in the world). Marketing required my analytical/mathy brain AND my creative, artistic side. And the people were the BEST. And the jobs were fun!

A company in Crested Butte was advertising for a Marketing and Office Assistant who could work in Dallas, then move to Colorado. This was the answer to my prayers! And they hired me…

Leavin’ Texas for Colorado

I drove my old, beat up 1987 Isuzu Trooper (and boy was it a trooper!!) from Fort Worth to Gunnison, Colorado. It’s a trip I’ve made by myself since I was 18 years old, and we made dozens of times while I was growing up in Fort Worth. My mother had purchased a tiny shoebox of a condominium in the oldest building on Mt. Crested Butte called Edelweis Condominiums, so we practically lived in Colorado in the summertimes, and taking TX Hwy 287 through Amarillo, Dumas, Dalhart, Texline, Raton New Mexico, then up 25 to Pueblo Colorado, then cutting across through the Sangre de Cristo mountains of Westcliffe, (or through Saguache), then over Monarch Pass to Salida, then Gunnison, then north to Crested Butte… Easy peasy! It was supposed to be a bout a 14 hour drive, but I have a lead foot (except for in all of those tiny texas towns along the way that drop the speed limit suddenly from 65 to 35 and make all their town’s money off of giving Texans on their way to Colorado expensive tickets: Claude, Clarendon, Goodnight, etc…). It’s a beautiful drive once you get to New Mexico

was new to the camp and was working as the secretary/office manager for Forward Steps, an adolescent therapy program that took at-risk kids out on 6-8 week backpacking trips with therapists and psychiatrists. The team had just finished building the Ropes Course, and among the obstacles was a “Power Pole” that you are supposed to climb up, somehow stand on top of it, then jump for a trapeze. Simple, right?

 

I’ll never forget the moment I saw Smitty for the first time. I had joined a company called “Forward Steps” that took kids out into the wilderness on 6-8 weeks of backpacking and treatment with licensed therapists and Psychiatrists.