As a child in a large family in rural northeastern Pennsylvania, Penny developed a lifelong love of the outdoors. Riding horses, hunting and fishing in addition to perpetual high school athletics established an active lifestyle early on. The more water was involved the better. Once at main campus Penn State, she became a certified scuba diver, a sailing instructor, Water Safety Instructor and an Emergency Medical Technician.

The lure of water led to a precipitous college senior semester as an intern at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in the Florida Keys. This experience irrevocably introduced her to the salt water lifestyle. Living and cruising aboard a sailing yacht with a baby eventually necessitated survival swimming. The skills her baby son learned illuminated what was to become a fascinating lifelong career path. In 1985 Penny trained as a survival swimming instructor then progressed to training instructors. She has taught and trained instructors in a number of locations while facilitating her captain husband’s myriad marine charter enterprises including live-aboard diving, mothership fly fishing and commercial lobster diving.

Penny’s experience spans over 35 years and includes teaching and training three successful national survival swim programs. Given this perspective, she seeks to impact the expansion of opportunities for children and their families to safely enjoy the water by focusing on the evolution of gentle yet effective instruction and instructor training with Swim Life.