Marsha graduated from Arundel, a top African, Anglican girls secondary boarding school.  She was active in her school’s Interact Club.  One day, when young Marsha was pondering college options, her uncle a PhD candidate in Alberta, was home visiting.  He extolled the idea that Marsha study abroad, and study software technology specifically – useful stuff in an emerging information age.  So, on her uncle’s urging, she plunged into the Alberta cold to earn an Associate Degree in computer science from MacEwan University in Edmonton.  Microsoft was onboarding young folks newly possessed of such skills.  It brought her to the U.S. under a work visa and launched her in the tech industry.  However, she needed something more stable, and Weyerhaeuser was the first to offer her a real job.  Then came Intel, AT&T, Meridian Technology, and Russell Investments where she met its General Counsel, Seattle 4 Past President and senior statesman extraordinaire, Karl Ege.  Rotary for this once Interactor, was an easy sell.  Marsha jumped in, first in Tacoma at Sunrise Rotary, then briefly at Redmond Rotary while working for Accenture.  Now she’s in-house at Nordstrom.  

Marsha’s professional world has been, and is currently about one thing – making out-of-the-box technology useful for end-users.  For example, writing instructions for the first iPhone users at AT&T, or interfacing between Nordstrom buyers and the programmers of its inventory tracking system.

At the encouragement of Jim Moore and Linda Cheever (her sponsors), and Jeff Prichard and the late Steve Crane, Marsha attended the district conference last April in Malawi.  She never met a more passionate, hardworking, fun having group of folks – many of whom she befriended on a chartered bus ride.  The result in her words “has turned my flame of interest in Rotary, into an inferno.”

As much as good luck has propelled Marsha’s career and personal life, it hasn’t come without its unfair share of misfortune:

• The day prior to 9/11, her dad died.  She and her two brothers, all on the same next day flight home, were ordered to the ground.
• Two months later, one brother was killed in a car accident.
• Exactly a year ago, Marsha’s nine-year-old daughter was struck by a vehicle at a dangerous Rainier Avenue intersection. Since then, her daughter has recovered, but the trauma lingers.
• And, yesterday, Marsha attended the funeral of her guardian angel, the woman who took her in when she first arrived from Alberta.

For fun, Marsha likes to give back – through Spectrum Dance, the Washington State Coalition of African Leaders, and by sending seed packets back to propagate a little Northwest goodness in her homeland.