Colleen grew-up in San Diego on the coast, where she spent every spare moment in the water, which led to her passion for marine wildlife. Living in the Bay Area has changed her relationship with water – it’s a little colder and summers often equal small craft warnings in the Bay! She enjoys swimming and stand-up paddle boarding year-round in the San Francisco and Tomales Bays, where she enjoys seeing marine wildlife including river otters, harbor seals, a variety of sharks, and moon jellyfish, along with a variety of shorebirds.

Colleen is a trained geologist and works in the water resources field at Balance Hydrologics — Balance specializes in water resources: hydrology, hydraulics, geomorphology, restoration design, and field services. With Balance she holds the position as Vice President of Operations and Marketing Director. She has worked in the geosciences, with a focus on water resources, environmental and public works fields for over 31 years, where she marries her passion for human connections, water resources, restoration ecology, and art in her role at Balance. Throughout her career, Colleen has been involved in a broad spectrum of projects from developing complex GIS databases, to reconstructing the history of a place for restoration projects through exploring historical images and maps, to developing artistic renderings of restoration concepts. In addition to her professional life, Colleen is a multi-media artist, working in textile and paint mediums — her work focuses on the natural environment, water, and science. A recent series of work explored climate change and the melting polar ice caps — illustrating research, affected habitats and physical changes in Antarctica.