Prior to her move to California to pursue more personally creative projects, Sally was an educator for 22 years. In 1967 she received her B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her first career in education was teaching English, remedial subjects and creative writing to emotionally disturbed adolescents in special settings in New York City for nine years. She had moved to New York in 1968 to earn a Masters in Special Education for the Emotionally Disturbed from Teachers College, Columbia University. She had previously spent a summer during college studying art and literature at Columbia.

Throughout the 70s in New York, Sally continually took non-credit course work in film appreciation and film-making, photography, graphics and writing.  In an effort to synthesize these various interests she returned to graduate school to study instructional design and media production at Indiana University in Bloomington.  She received a second Masters degree and a Ph.D. in Instructional Systems Technology with a minor in instructional television in 1981.  She then worked in higher education in Georgia and Virginia designing instructional media and materials and working with faculty on teaching and curriculum development.  She was also very involved in producing instructional television programming and teleconferences and had administrative and managerial responsibilities.  Sally co-authored (with Dr. Valerie Whiteson) an English as a Second Language textbook for Prentice Hall/Simon & Schuster entitled, "Personal Themes in Literature: The Multi-Cultural Experience".  Published in 1993, it is still a popular text in high schools and community colleges.  Also, two articles by her were published in "American Artist Magazine".  In the October 1995 issue she was the featured watercolorist -- "Delighting in the Details" and her November 1993 article discussed "An Artists' Support Group". 

Recently Sally embarked on yet another new chapter of her multi-faceted life and has become a Personal Life Coach -- a pursuit that still allows her to paint and write.  Her life experiences in the career, relationship and health realms provide a strong foundation from which she coaches others wanting a more creative, authentic and fulfilling life.  Her coach training and certification is through the Coach Training Alliance,  an accredited institute through the International Coach Federation.