Photographer of the Month ~ Linda Martinson

In my past professional life, I worked on economic analysis and rate case financing at the Georgia Power Company for several years, which was much more fun than it sounds. After we got Plant Vogtle on line (it is the last nuclear plant commissioned in the US), I moved on to Georgia Tech, another bastion of engineering and male authority. There I worked my way up to Vice President of Planning, Budget and Finance. It was in this position that I learned a lot about not-for-profit accounting and college finance and planning, and I also mastered the Art of the Argument. My final professional gig was as head of an independent school of 700+ students from 3 years old through the 12th grade. The Galloway School in Atlanta is a wonderful school — many of the children in my life attended there—and it was quite a privilege and great fun to lead the charge there for the final 12 years of my career. It convinced me that the honest, extensive and effective education of children should be our number one priority.

I have always been interested in photography, and the start of both my retirement and the digital age of photography converged. I studied digital photography at Santa Fe Workshops and with George DeWolfe and Marilyn Sholin, and participated in some shows in Atlanta. Then I got side-tracked photographing our daughter’s developing soccer career, but now that she’s graduating from college (and soccer), I plan to return to more arty/creative efforts with photography. When we moved to Western North Carolina in 2011, I started attending the Blue Ridge Naturalist classes at the NC Arboretum and earned a Blue Ridge Naturalist certificate. I began to write newsletters about all I have learned and discovered about the incredible biodiverse area in which we live. Perhaps it is possible to master electric power supply planning and college finance, but there is always more to learn about the natural world. I feel privileged to live in WNC and to have so many friends and resources for future learning, photographing and writing.