Jean-Marie Perry:
CLASS OF 1980
Swanton High SchoolClass of 1980
Swanton, OH
Jean-Marie's Story
Life
For anyone curious, I've been living abroad now for over 30 years in North Africa, the Middle East and Europe. I've been married to Will (a wonderful man whom I met on my travels) for 25 years and we currently live between his native England and our new home in France. I have a daughter from a previous marriage who also lives in the UK along with her partner and five children (yes, I'm a Grandma! Or 'Nana' as the little ones call me.)
I've worked for a number of major organisations including the United Nations, and am currently employed (primarily) in a 'specialist' role by a large UK police force. I live in a lovely house with a small but perfectly formed garden and three dogs and three chickens in a typical English village. I continue to travel extensively with my husband and am just as likely to be found 'punting' down the Amazon in pouring rain as lying on a sun-drenched beach in India. More recently we've begun spending more and more time in France where we take life a bit slower and plan to retire.
School
I never really enjoyed my years at SHS although some of my classmates did make it bearable from time to time with kind words and brief friendships. I was painfully shy and generally kept myself to myself. I felt stiffled by a seemingly never-ending pressure to conform (we couldn't all be cheerleaders and football stars), and couldn't wait to escape the constraints of a small town.
But, I've escaped SHS and gone on to travel and research extensively. I have become a leader in a new and very specialised field with applications in both human rights and criminal investigation which has taken me around the world and led to my present career. I guess you could say that in as much as I wanted to escape my years at SHS, they contributed significantly to making me what I am today and will therefore stay with me forever - essentially fighting for the underdog and victims of social and criminal injustice.
College/University
I have managed to excel at university despite many ups and downs, starts and stops. I have four advanced academic/professional qualifications (each earned outside the US). I have given presentations internationally to fellow professionals including doctors and police officers whenever time and work constraints permitted, and have written a number of papers on specialist subjects relevant to m...Expand for more
y field of work.
Workplace
I started my working life about six months after graduation doing a number of jobs and athough I was also attending university, I soon got bored and accepted an offer of a free ticket to Cairo from a pilot friend. Anyone who truly knows me knows this was an opportunity too good for me to miss, and once there I never looked back!
Since leaving the US, I've done so many things in so many countries to get me to where I am today that you wouldn't believe it if I told you everything. But just to give you a few examples, perhaps my strangest job involved 'camel-sitting' (a bit like babysitting, but with camels) in the Egyptian Sinai. My greatest missed opportunity was not taking a job as a BBC World Service 'radio news reader' because I was having too much fun as an 'archaeologist' at the time. My most dangerous job involved working with the United Nations in conflict zones as part of an international team investigating cases of genocide and mass murder. My most interesting job involved.....well, I'm still doing it! At least until I retire.
For a while now I've worked in a 'specialist' role (not unrelated to my previous UN role but a lot less dangerous) for a large police force in the UK. It makes life easier for my family having me safe and in one place for a while! I enjoy my work despite the extremely high pressure I'm sometimes still under. My colleagues are supportive and highly professional which makes things a lot easier when the going gets tough and overtime becomes the norm.
Along with my full-time'specialist' job, I'm also a founding director and principal advisor in a forensic and medico-legal organisation providing forensic advice and an independent case review service to families and their legal representatives in cases of military deaths. This has been a very satisfying role which has seen high-profile success in the UK and elsewhere.
Just as you would think I have enough on my plate, I've commenced another postgraduate degree - this time in 'Law' en route to qualifying as a Barrister! Combining advanced study with full-time work and my directorship isn't easy, but I'm not one to back away from a challenge! However recent family developments are turning my focus more and more towards them and plans for retiring are developing. Slowing down might just be my new big adventure.
Register for Free to view all details!
Yearbooks
Reunions
