Alison was born in Sacramento, California and spent her formative years in Taipei, Taiwan. She was raised in an Air Force family, moving back and forth between Fairfax, VA and the beautiful island. Her father later retired and joined a US multinational firm to manage its electronics factory in the southern port and Export Processing Zone of KaoHsiung. She graduated high school from a boarding school in Taichung, Taiwan before returning to the USA for university. She graduated from the University of California-Berkeley with a Bachelors degree, and The London School of Economics with a Masters of Science degree.
Alison spent eight years in the financial industry, in banking and lending, after a management-training program with Bank of America. She continued with Citibank’s International Private Banking Group then joined Charles Schwab & Co., Inc., after a brief project with Boston Consulting Group, trading in its elite stock and options trading group serving the bank’s top 2% of private investors. She then decided to serve in the US Peace Corps in its Business Development Group, as Director/Volunteer of a business incubator in Plovdiv, Bulgaria the country's second largest city. She led the growth of a national alternative Women’s Association and launched projects related to teaching ethics and business. Following the Peace Corps, she remained in country and joined a consultant firm to the World Bank, with work on a project to bring the Varna state enterprise private, under its privatization program in Bulgaria.
After returning to the USA she found her place in the world of education, working with felons to help them earn their High School GED's. This opened the door to teaching credentials in Secondary and Special Education, as well as certifications to work with students on the Autism spectrum and as an Educational Therapist. She has had opportunity to work in and with virtually every possible venue and demographic of education in the San Francisco Bay Area, reaping rich reward. It has been, and is, her joy and profession. In her free time, Alison volunteers time to work with people recovering from alcohol and drug addiction.
