Valerie A. Kapp grew up in Richland, Pennsylvania, a small town surrounded by Amish farms and a community where your parents knew what you did that day before you got home for supper. She is the oldest of five, with four younger brothers, one deceased. She had a grandfather who was blind and an uncle who was severely developmentally delayed. So no wonder her career was helping people as a counselor, specializing in counseling with the deaf. Valerie was an outstanding athlete, beginning in the summer community playground competitions leading to high school and college athletics. She was president of the student council in high school, in the band and other activities, and a football statistician. She played three sports in high school and college. She was voted captain in all three sports and selected to all-star, all-state, and national field hockey teams (before the NCAA). She also coached at the college and high school levels. For forty years, she has lived in a suburb of Dayton, Ohio, where she is retired after working in the field of deafness, HIV/AIDS, and vocational rehabilitation. She ended her career as a research associate at Wright State University in the Substance Abuse Resources and Disability Issues (SARDI) program. In addition, she has served on the board of Trustees of the Deaf Community Resource Center in Dayton, Ohio, and as an adjunct instructor at Sinclair Community College Psychology and Interpreter Training Departments and Wright State University School of Medicine. You can find Valerie riding her Harley motorcycle, golfing with her wife and friends, visiting New York City to see Broadway plays, or every Monday night at one of the houses of their Monday night social club, sharing a meal and laughter with ten other women. Valerie self-published a non-fiction e-book titled, Woman as Leaders? YES, YOU CAN! A 6-Step Formula to Confidently and Powerfully Inspire Others to Follow You as a Leader. She is working on her second lesbian romance novel about a woman who lost her partner in 2009 from a heart attack at the age of sixty with no legal protection from an unaccepting family. The story moves into 2015 with the passage of the Marriage Equality Act and follows her journey to believe in love again. You can contact Valerie at: alignmentleadership@gmail.com.
