Diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer to the lung in 2006
“CJ” retired from the Air Force in 2003 after serving 24 years as an intelligence officer. She then continued to work for the federal government in a civilian capacity until 2007 when complications from metastatic breast cancer cut her career short. CJ’s positions included, amongst others, monitoring and analyzing Soviet satellite activity during the Cold War, supporting airlift operations for Operation JUST CAUSE in Panama and Operation DESERT STORM in Iraq, serving as the intelligence lead on the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the Somalia Conflict, and coordinating intelligence activities of 11 nations for NATO crisis intervention.
Overseas tours included South Korea and Germany – the latter spent working with German intelligence organizations due to her fluency in German. Her last position in the Air Force carried over into her civil service career … that of resolving the cases of Americans who did not return from previous conflicts, primarily the Vietnam War and the first Gulf War.
In 2007 CJ started a support program for metastatic breast cancer. Within six months it had 24 members. It now serves as the prototype for METAvivor’s national Peer to Peer Support Program. In 2008 she produced a metastatic breast cancer ribbon pin and in 2009 she asked three other support group members, Avis Halberstadt, Karen Presswood and Rhonda Rhodes, to join her in founding the non-profit METAvivor to raise funds for metastatic breast cancer research.
Raised in Santa Cruz CA, CJ has lived in Annapolis MD since 1997, sharing her home with three rescue cats.
