Ken Marich
The Institute for Learning in Retirement (ILR) is proud to have Sharon Cotter as a faculty member in the ILR program. She has a long history with photography and shares her expertise with students who take her courses.
Sharon was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas. While attending Wichita High School North she met the love of her life, Byron Cotter (who incidentally is the president of the ILR). Sharon and Byron got married in 1969 and moved to Wisconsin. She attended the University of Wisconsin where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing in 1972. She practiced intensive care nursing at Mount Saint Mary’s Hospital in Lewiston, New York and continued her education and earned a Master’s degree in Nursing in 1977. While teaching Nursing at Niagara University she was voted the Teacher of the Year.
The lure of business entered her life and she earned an MBA degree in Finance from SUNY at Buffalo. Her career took a successful change and she worked for several firms in the U.S. and England in the fields of cost accounting, financial analysis, sales and marketing and data warehousing. While working for NYNEX Mobile Communications she was awarded the Employee of the Year for her significant contributions.
Sharon and Byron moved to SaddleBrooke in 2007. With her varied background she got involved in SaddleBrooke activities that leveraged her expertise in strategic planning, information and technology, communications and transition planning.
Now, how does photography fit into Sharon’s life? Sharon was given her first camera when she was four years old. She gave Byron a camera for their engagement present. She has a passion for travel and has been in 60 countries where her passion for photography played a major role. Sharon shared with me “in the days of film cameras, she limited herself to two rolls of film per day (72 photos) but now with digital cameras 10,000 photos per trip is pretty common.” She is an expert in many areas of photography and now shares her knowledge with SaddleBrooke residents. Sharon also finds time to provide photos and maintain the TV screens seen in the Bistro. She will be teaching an ILR course on Travel Photography in January 2018 and will have a follow up course in Photo Editing (March 2018) through the SaddleBrooke Computer Club, both of which she has previously taught.
Besides her contributions to the ILR she is an officer of the Digital Imaging Photography Club (DIGS). She also finds time for singing with the Sonoran Singers which she has done for the last 10 years. We are indeed fortunate to have Sharon Cotter involved with the ILR and other SaddleBrooke activities. For more information on the ILR go to sbilr.org.