Staff and Contributors to Pagosa Country Living
Norm Vance | Do Engelhardt

Norm Vance
Norm was born and grew up in Kentucky. He moved to Dallas, Texas to continue his education in the arts at North Texas State University. During a semester off he was drafted into the U.S. Army where he trained for and became a medic. Following the service, he began education in the medical field. He graduated and went on to extended education and a first career at The University of Texas, Southwestern Medical School at Dallas. Norm worked in the Coronary Intensive Care Unit at Parkland Hospital doing nuclear medicine research on active heart attack patients along with a host of related research projects.

Norm fell in love and married Ruth Jacober. Ruth had grown up in India as the daughter of missionary parents and moved to the states to go to nursing school. She also worked at the medical school on a pediatric hypertension research project.

After a decade in this intense and high stress job, as Norm says, “I turned gray and turned loose!” Norm and Ruth moved to south of Pagosa Springs, Colorado and began a new life building a self sufficient/alternate energy homestead. Ruth became a town nurse and Norm began a publishing business printing seasonal tourism/recreation/real estate magazines, The San Juan Adventure Guide and Pagosa Country Living.

Norm published for two decades when a cancer/surgery ended the magazine. Now, Norm is doing printed projects, Pagosa Country Maps & Info, and is doing the Pagosa Country Adventure Guide website. He also writes for Pagosa.com/The Daily Post and has articles in the archives dating back to December 2003.

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Do Engelhardt
Web Production
Do (pronounced Doe) was born in San Diego, CA and grew up in Denver, CO. The daughter of a computer programmer, she was exposed to computers her entire life. A high tech job with a communications company while in her first year of college started Do off with a lot of experience in quality tracking and program implementation, databases, project and people management, as well as exposure to the ever changing world of communications. Prior to the dot com bust, Do was editing and updating websites for a gardening and nursery company in Denver. Currently, Do owns and runs her own web design and development company, Fluid Design, in Pagosa Springs.

Do loves to travel and has visited numerous countries including: England, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Greece and Egypt. Her two favorites were Italy and the fjords of Norway, although she is absolutely fascinated by all things ancient Egyptian; history, art, ruins, tombs, religion and the people.

In 1996, after returning from a month in Italy, Do decided to be a foster mother. After training and certification, she welcomed a 20-month-old boy, Oden, into her home. After three years, biological parental rights were finally terminated and Do was able to adopt Oden in 2000. The adoption was finalized on a Tuesday and Do and Oden moved to Pagosa Springs, CO that Saturday.

Do has spent a lot of time working on and supporting the Pagosa.com site and was a founder of the Pagosa Daily Post. After a year, Do moved on to tackle different areas of the web world and continues to learn something new in this business everyday.

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