Meet Malissa

Born and raised in the Midwest –Minneapolis and Chicago— Malissa matriculated on the Annapolis campus of St. John’s, discovering Santa Fe during a trip to visit a friend. Drawn to Santa Fe’s magnificent mountains, clean, dry air, creative bounty and down-to-earth residents, she stayed to finish her degree and despite a few detours back to Chicago and overseas, never shook the sense that this was home.

Business professionalism was a strong and formative presence from early life through which Malissa learned firsthand the pleasures –and power—of integrity, ahead-of-the-curve training, and hard work.

Extensive travel and education hard-wired Malissa to be curious, resourceful and inclined to face challenge with a philosophical sense of humor. With a broad-based education in the Great Books (B.A., St. John’s College, Botanical Medicine (B.S.) and Fine Art, Malissa has a variety of perspectives from which to approach a problem. Living oversees (Geneva and Rome) fine-tuned her ability to adapt. Malissa speaks fluent Italian and rusty French.

Career highlights include helping ghost-write and edit a book on Career Transitions, serving as Course Administrator for a distance learning program in Integrative Medicine (written and researched by a Time Magazine “Innovator-of-the-Year” and former Chair of the White House Commission for Alternative and Complementary Medicine), and acting as a Co-Director for a leading Contemporary Art gallery on Canyon Road.

Malissa has served on several boards and committees, including the Board of the Santa Fe Botanical Garden, and is co-founder, along with Joshua, of Changing Gallery, which uses real estate listings to showcase the work of emerging and independent artists.