Debbie Miller
Instructor:

Debbie has been designing graphics, web sites and FrontPage elements for over four years. She first started out updating a personal site. Seeing all the unique designs on the internet inspired many ideas. So, Debbie started playing with HTML and graphics which led to a second domain where she could offer her designs to others as a Free Lance Web Site Designer and offer custom design elements for FrontPage® in the form of themes, web templates and starter webs.

Where does Debbie get her inspiration? "Well to tell you the truth I never know when I will be inspired. I can be driving and see a bill board advertisement, be working at my other part time job as a cashier and see a t-shirt, looking through a magazine, out walking my dog(s), browsing the internet or just talking to a friend about design talents in general. When I get an inspiration it just all of a sudden goes off like a light bulb. I then either to a quick drawing on a piece of paper or even on a sales slip if an idea pops into my head. Sometimes just playing in my graphics program with different filters gives me incentive to make a theme or web template".

Besides enjoying creating graphics and designing web sites, Debbie likes reading romance novels or computer books, cooking, gardening, garage sales, antiques, going for walks and country music. Her other love is animals. She currently owns 3 German Shepherds and several cats. Her dream is to get an older farm house and restore it. "I would also like to have a place where I can help stray cats that are left homeless or abandon by their careless owners. It breaks my heart to see these intelligent and loving creatures on the street to fend for themselves".

Shawn Peters-Miller
Instructor:

Shawn learned to rely on her creativity for entertainment at an early age. She grew up an only child on a dairy farm in rural Michigan.

In recent years, Shawn spent her time as a decorative painter and mosaicist. After a back injury that left her unable to sit for long periods of time painting, she rediscovered polymer clay. Shawn found she could stand at the counter to sculpt. A number clocks, bottles, jars and boxes were created. One day, happening across an oriental import store, she purchased several beautiful pots. Wondering what to do with them, the idea for polymer clay bonsai was born.

Shawn is now working again in her other arts and crafts, but the polymer clay medium continues to draw her back and inspire.

She resides in Royal Oak, Michigan, with her husband, cat, and 4 ferrets.

Sharon & Roy Montero
Instructor:

Sharon and Roy Montero specialize in search engine optimization and consult with small business clients, with a focus primarily on women owned businesses. They help clients achieve a high search engine ranking for their Web pages resulting in more traffic and ultimately more sales.

The Montero's have been consulting since 1996 and have done extensive research and testing on all of the popular SEO techniques that are in existence today. They provide clients with an ethical approach to properly optimizing their Websites without any "tricks" or Spam techniques that search engines are known to penalize and ban sites for.

Jennifer Pasquale
Instructor:

I am a sahm with 2 children and expecting my third this May. I have been scrapbooking for 4 years and have just switched to digital scrapbooking over the past year. My quest to find the right program and learn it led me to Eclectic Academy. I have taken PhotoShop Elements I and II courses here at Eclectic Academy. From there I have explored the software on my own and started making digital scrapbook pages. I’ve come back to Eclectic Academy as an instructor to share my knowledge of digital scrapbooking with others.

Richard Pope
Instructor:

I became involved in computer graphics accidentally. While working as a commercial fisherman in Alaska in 1992, I broke both of my shoulders during a Halibut fishery accident. It took 3 surgeries and 18 months of physical rehabilitation before I was anywhere near my old self again. During this period my brother sent me a computer with instructions to learn as much as I could because I would never be a fisherman again.

After purchasing Painter 2 I have not had any regrets. I began creating concept art for the Alaska Wilderness magazine, which led to more concept cover illustrations for books and a few cd s. Eventually I decided to specialize in custom image sprays as a full time occupation. I create nozzles for Painter, image lists for Photo-Paint, tubes for Paint Shop Pro and object/stamps for Photo Impact.

If you are interested you can check out some of my work at my web site: http://www.rapartz.com/

Ray Robillard
Instructor:

I’m a computer analyst-programmer and I work full time as an analyst. I design solutions to fix software problems, automate work and establish standards. I also participate in software design, and I do some programming, when duty requires it. My duties also includes being in charge of an internal website for the company I work in, both on the interface side and on the administrative side.

I’ve always liked computer graphics. My first computer was a Tandy Color Computer with 16Kb of RAM. 2 hours later, it had 64Kb of RAM because I had discovered that to create graphics intensive programs, the computer required more memory… Since then, I’ve always like computer generated graphics, in all forms. I’m also an amateur photographer. Mostly casual shooting of landscape and people (in parties and ceremonies).

My teaching activities began almost 20 years ago when I taught the LOGO computer language to children and teenagers. Later, I taught private lessons of word processors and Windows operating system to adults. And during my various daytime jobs, I’ve often been the designated trainer for different hardware and software (IBM cash registers, OS/2 operating system, Microsoft Office suite, etc.). Just recently, I’ve co-authored the “Crafting with Elements” classroom with Sara Froehlich, offered here at Eclectic Academy.

Ray Seeger
Instructor:

Ray Seeger (aka. GuitarMan) has been involved in the wonderful world of computing since 1982 (back in the days when we used punch cards to tell the computer what to do for us). Since then, he has intensely studied personal computing machines (both software and hardware) running PC-DOS as well as every version of Microsoft's operating systems. After spending several years providing individual computer help to his online friends, he eventually started a free tech help desk email forum called PCTechTalk at Yahoogroups.com. The incredible success of that group is proof of the need for the inexpensive learning that Eclectic Academy provides.

Donna Sellinger
Instructor:

Donna Sellinger received her bachelor’s degree in education from of the University of Miami and her master’s degree in education from Indiana University. She taught in the Dade County, Florida public schools for ten years prior to going on active duty in the Army Reserve. When she retired from the military, she attended George Washington University where she received a Certificate in Web Development and currently owns her own web design business and teaches web design in local area continuing education programs

Ramona White
Instructor:

Ramona White is an Oregon-based web designer and writer. She sometimes runs errands wearing a trenchcoat to cover her nightgown, but she is never without a notebook and pen. "The Strange California Journey of Ramona White", her account of a family trip down the Southern California Coast, was named a Blog of Note. Her fiction and nonfiction stories explore the many facets of modern relationships and have appeared in local and national publications. She hopes to share her love of writing and to encourage others to preserve their lives and dreams through journalkeeping. She cannot be bribed with chocolate.

Ed Wiser
Instructor:

I have been working in computer graphic's since first getting a Amiga and Deluxe Paint many years ago. I work in multimedia information systems and professional presentations. I have been using Painter since version 4. I have for the past year been running a tutorial list on Painter at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Painter101 with and additional website at: http://painter101.manilasites.com/ . I enjoy working with computer graphics because it frees my creative ideas to accomplish anything. With Painter an artist is given the ability to bring natural paint into the digital world.