Karen Gilmore grew up in a small incorporated town of Sykesville, Maryland. She is the youngest of five children and her parents were both employed in the medical field (father was a doctor, mother was a nurse-both are retired). Karen is currently residing in Miramar, Florida after relocating from the Northern Virginia area where she recently worked in the defense industry for a government contractor in the field of knowledge management and web development. Previously, she held sales and marketing positions for ten years in the consumer products industry before switching career areas to the IT field. She completed her Master of Science Degree in Information Technology at the Johns Hopkins University in May of 2002. Her Myers-Briggs personality type is an ISTJ.