Sharon never planned to live her adult life in Goshen.
In 1970 as a seventeen-year-old coming from Pennsylvania to Goshen College to sudy nursing, her plan was to "get out of Dodge" as soon as she graduated. Because of a commitment to Goshen Hospital from college loans, she started work there after graduation in the spring of 1974. A mutual friend introduced us (ask for the story sometime) and we first met when she was taking care of my Mom in the hospital. A couple of weeks later we started dating, by November we were engaged, married in May of 1975, and we've lived in Goshen ever since.
As an RN, her work was varied, beginning in med/surg, moving to the emergency department (eventually heading that department), then to head a new education department (she started the advanced EMT trainng for Goshen). She went back to college and got a BA in Biology and tried to get into med school. When that didn't work out, she worked at Elkhart Hospital as head of the Progressive Care Unit (mostly cardiac).
From the hospital setting, she worked for Greencroft and atarted their home health service. From there she was approached by John Kolb to join Kolb and Cristophel (now Kolb and Associates) as a consultant in the long-term care industry. Sharon was a national-level speaker at conferences and did seminars and consulting, primarily on state regulations. This led to a specialization in assisted living and she authored a book on assisted living with Briggs.
After years of working with John to start senior living communities in smaller towns, they along with business partners started Woodcrest in Scottdale, PA. Later they started three communities in northern Indiana in connectin with various community partners: Wynfield Crossing in Rochester, Country Crossing in Shipshewana, and Waterford Crossing in Goshen.
Sharon was involved with management at Waterford Crossing from opening in 2004 until it was sold in May 2015 to Trilogy Health Systems. Waterford Crossing earned a reputation for high quality assisted living under her direction.
Sharon works part-time as the manager for the Waterford Crossing Condo Association and volunteers as the Manager for the Goshen Theater Inc Capital campaign.
Sharon in Japan