Jeannie is an expert at starting up and starting over and her first book, a business memoir, proves it.
Raised in a town of 1,100 people in rural Virginia, she was an exchange student in Paraguay and Spain during high school. She put herself through college at the University of Texas by working as an administrative/legislative assistant in the Texas Legislature, until her volunteer work on the Jimmy Carter presidential campaign led to a job on his White House transition team.
Her disillusionment with politics led her to short term gigs in the InterAmerican Development Bank and the World Bank, and then she landed a dream job in broadcasting.
Jeannie was the first producer of the Larry King Show on the Mutual Radio Network. She made the move into TV as a Talent Coordinator for the Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder (NBC) then as a Producer for the CBS Morning News with Diane Sawyer and Bill Kurtis, CBS Nightwatch with Charlie Rose, and Face the Nation with Lesley Stahl.
She later produced a series of documentaries for the Library of Congress, and a documentary celebrating the 30th anniversary of the moon landing with the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry. She also produced infomercials, promotional trailers, and a global travel show called Travel and Adventure.
After her first marriage ended in divorce, she had a baby at 45 (a complete surprise), then when their daughter turned 18, her second husband died of brain cancer.
A year later, Jeannie met a man on a dating app and they've been together ever since.
These stories and more are related in Start Me Up, as illustrations of the inevitability of change, the power of resilience, and the triumph of love, hope, over experience.
Jeannie is currently an advisor and mentor to startup companies in the US and internationally. In the last ten years she has advised over 100 companies in tech, consumer packaged goods, natural products, fitness, and cannabis and other plant medicines.
