Louise Dersch Thompson:  

I went to Washington, DC, after high school to work for the Federal Government. I worked at the Federal Aviation Agency, Peace Corps, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. At HUD, I worked in Labor Relations, Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, and the Office of Community Development working with cities, counties, and states. In addition to living in the DC area, I took a job transfer to Louisville, KY, in 1995 to work as the HUD homeless coordinator for the State . I returned to DC in December 1998 and worked at HUD Hqs. as a program manager of a self-help housing program until my retirement in September 2010.. My work required me to travel extensively throughout the country to 45 states, as well as PR. I took my first int'l trip to Paris, FR, in 2005. Since retiring in 2010, I have traveled to Switzerland, Italy, and Peru; taken several bus tours in the US; and a full circle Amtrak trip from the East Coast to the Midwest, New Mexico, up the California coastline to Seattle, and across the Northern US; and five Caribbean cruises. I traveled to China (21 days in six cities) in June 2017 and took a cruise to the Panama Canal in March 2018. We a...Expand for more