Renate on bike to work day
Renate grew up as the oldest of three girls in a small village in northern Bavaria. At age 19, she went to Würzburg University to become a secondary school teacher. She came to the United States for graduate studies, changed her plans, and completed a Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Arizona.
After moving to the Bay Area with her husband, Renate discovered technical training as an opportunity to use her skills. She worked for IntelliCorp, a small Artificial Intelligence company, for 7 years. She then switched from technical training to technical writing and has worked as a software technical writing consultant for over 20 years. Being a consultant makes it possible for Renate to devote some of her time exclusively to her SI practice. She finds it fulfilling to engage mind, body, and heart working as a technical writer and as a manual therapist.
Renate has lived in Mountain View for over 15 years with her husband, James, who works as a software architect in research. Together, they like to do yoga, hike, and go to concerts of classical and world music. Renate also enjoys riding her bikes, running, doing calligraphy or textile design, cooking, working in her garden, or learning something she doesn’t know. A few years ago, Renate took a break to do a stained glass workshop at Aanraku Glass Studios, more recently, she has taken some drawing classes.
Renate is an avid gardener and has had her garden on tour with the Going Native Garden Tour for several years. You can register to view the many beautiful gardens on this tour in April. An article about Renate and her garden was in the Palo Alto Weekly and Mountain View Voice last year. Together with a good friend who lives in the Santa Cruz Mountain, Renate has been the author of Town Mouse and Country Mouse, a popular blog about gardening with California native plants.
Renate on Going Native Garden Tour day