Andy's Resume / CV
Mia's Resume / CV
It's a bit of a joke between Mia and I lately that we're becoming the same person. Yesterday she bought a new pair of running shoes, and when they didn't have her size in the women's version, she got the exact same pair as me (color and all). We both wear Helly Hansen clothing and Björn Borg underwear. We are precisely the same weight, even when it fluctuates up and down, and she's one centimeter shorter than I am. And since we work and live and travel together (finally, now she has her Green Card), we spend an inordinate amount of time with one another. So there's some truth to it.
In reality we're vastly different, but I think we complement each other pretty well, particularly when it comes to working together. Mia grew up in the countryside in Sweden, living on raw milk and homegrown, homemade food from her wonderful mother Annika (her dad, Börje - I still can't say his name - has an uncanny ability to completely clean his plate when he eats, with only a knife and fork, sauce and all). Mia was an extremely competitive swimmer, going as far as making the Swedish Junior national team at one point and moving out of the house at age 16 to join the swimming team in Uppsala, some 45 minutes away from her home in Dunderbo. This is not odd in her family - her mom did the same at her age, and her brother, now 19, has been away for several years to play handball (the Olympic version, not what you're thinking). Mia is one of the strongest, most confident and independent women I have ever met, the biggest reason that I fell in love with her and simultaneously the biggest reason she drives me crazy sometimes because she thinks she's always right (she knows she's always right, in fact, even when she's not).
So, I said we complement each other, and we do. I'm a dreamer - Mia brings me back to earth. I'm an optimist, she's a realist. I stink at measuring, she's great at it (so long as it's metric). I've go the big picture, Mia is great at the details.
I (Andy) graduated from Penn State in August of 2006, also with a degree in Tourism Management, and I met Mia backpacking in New Zealand the following winter and my life has changed dramatically since then. I've been sailing my whole life, mainly on my dad's boats on the Chesapeake (hence the 'Father & Son Sailing' designation - Dad taught me everything I know), and have done close to 30,000 offshore miles as a delivery skipper (and on my own boat), in the past five years or so, including those same Atlantic crossings with Mia. I've been writing professionally for the past four years or so, only recently getting involved with some of the bigger sailing magazines (namely Yachting World). I love math, I love to read and I love to debate politics and things that get me excited. I'm nuts about cycling and both Mia and I are avid runners, marathoners and triathletes. In college, I founded the Penn State Ski Club (psuskiers.com), and used to love doing that (maybe even more than skiing), but haven't done much of it since we started sailing full time.Together with the writing, the sailing work and the World Cruising Club rally organization we've done, Mia and I have managed to cobble together a pretty cool career doing what we love to do.
