After graduating from the University of Michigan, Karen spent time in Vermont attending grad school and living in a rural setting. She became interested in village government and land use as a volunteer in the village of Hinesburg, Vermont. Moving to Michigan some years later, she wanted to live in a similar setting and she and her husband found a home and some acreage on Scio Church Rd. Within a few years she joined the Lodi Township Planning Commission after successfully organizing to prevent both an asphalt plant and then a landfill from going into an abandoned gravel pit. She spent 19 years on Lodi’s Commission and then several years on the Washtenaw County Planning Commission with a few as Chair.

For the last 25 years, Karen has owned and operated a yoga school called Yoga Focus. She considers teaching yoga to be a preservation and enhancement of a different sort of landscape. She served on the Ann Arbor Y’s Board for several terms, one of them as Chair, and developed a strategic plan for them with the help of the Y of the USA. Karen’s interest in land use and land preservation took a more personal turn recently when she and her husband signed a conservation easement on 30 acres of woods on their property.