Catherine received a B.A. at University of Colorado, Boulder in English Literature in 1991, an M.A. in Writing from State University of New York, Albany in 1997. She has just completed an M.S. degree in Education and Special Education.

During 1993, Catherine did what most aspiring writers do – anything that allows your work to get printed. She wrote manuscript analysis for both literary agents and Simon & Schuster; built an industry newsletter for the diamond district’s famous Martin Rappoport, and wrote magazine articles for the garment industry. Catherine reported for FMDG in their Broadway, Accessories, Swimwear, and Kid’s Market magazines.

It was her connection with Simon & Schuster that landed her first corporate, editorial job in late 1993. She assisted Bob Wallace, Pulitzer Prize winning editor for Ernest Becker’s Denial of Death, on his business list for the Free Press. Catherine successfully gave the image of the list a facelift for its growing trade audience, and brought it from its Macmillan home to the in-house family of Simon & Schuster/Viacom while launching the business line’s first paperback edition.

With an eye on interactive, Catherine jumped over into the electronic waters and marketing in 1995 with her work in Simon & Schuster’s Interactive division. SSI was the distribution home to 7 other publishers of edutainment CD-ROMS including Byron Preiss, Kaplan, Que/New Media, Davidson, Macmillan Digital, SAMs, etc.

Catherine was in charge of managing the sales channel, co-op advertising, in-store merchandising, trade shows and extensive copywriting for the titles. Some of the titles Catherine worked on directly was STAR TREK ® BORG, Tom Clancy’s SSN, and Vicky Iovine’s Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy.

1n 1996, CD-ROMS were being quickly replaced by downloadable online, and her division was downsizing. As the electronic media budgets turned out to be unstable and inconsistent, the marketing budgets for financial services were steady and exploding. Catherine turned down an offer to stay with Viacom and went to work for Putnam Investments in 1997 doing marketing/communications for their 401k plans and one of their most important clients, Viacom. Viacom being Catherine’s former NYC employer, this was a perfect fit.

Catherine was courted by Fidelity Investments a year later to work the pioneering fronts of marketing for client services for both domestic and international clients. On the domestic side of the business, Catherine’s brainchild was the Strategic Alliance Operations Conference, a due diligence event for the operations side of the business. After much work on a Service Quality Team and their research, Catherine found that the service side of the business maintained the highest employee employments. Therefore, discovering the great impact of client satisfaction on that side of the business. In one year, Catherine impacted client satisfaction with the Ops conference by 35%.

On the international side of the business, Catherine worked with the Chilean Pension system and the Latin American funds. She was able to re-engage her Spanish, and worked the U.S. gateway office in Miami alongside New York, Rhode Island and Fidelity’s headquarters in Boston. It was during her time in the international sector that Catherine caught the buzz of the global community and left Fidelity to launch her own entrepreneurial idea of an international ezine in five global languages. In November 2005, International Family Magazine at www.internationalfamilymag.com launched.

Catherine received a further Master's degree in Education to teach English Language Arts in grades 5-9. It is Catherine's great aspiration to synthesize her writing and teaching so they constantly inspire one another. She teaches middle school students and brings the world of writing, writing and editing for books, magazines, and corporate communications into the classroom. In turn, Catherine's students keep her writing current and relevant. Teenagers are a great feedback system of what is real in the world.

Catherine is married to John Hoffman with two sons, Brody and Jax, and lives in the U.S. between Hilton Head Island and NYC. In the summers, she travels internationally for in-country relations with her publication, IF mag. To contact Catherine you can reach her at cat@internationalfamilymag.com or her cell phone 646-413-4884.