JOAN SHARES HER STORY

The fact that the San Andreas Fault runs through the property of the 19th century Victorian farm that Joan loves to work on, doesn’t seem to worry this 58-year-old Californian all that much.

You get the impression that if the big earthquake does crack the world open all around her someday, she’d just roll up her sleeves and pull the world back together again.

Joan doesn’t walk away from hard work, whether it’s in personal life taking care of the grounds around her parents’ historic farm outside San Bernardino or her professional life preparing a medical provider’s professional fee claims to insurance payers.

After a few tries, Joan finally succeeded in passing the rigorous testing process to become a professional coder, a prestigious mark of competence in the medical billing and business support field.

She’s understandably proud of her title, but she can also let you know that taking care of that old farm gives her self-esteem a special boost. “I’m a strong person,” she says, “I can really do the work out there. I even do the irrigation work myself.”

That’s the way Joan rolls, working hard at whatever she tackles, whether she’s on the computer processing a claim at work or up on a tractor moving dirt and probably not wasting her time wondering if this is the day the earth will open up beneath her.

This is a woman who has figured out how she wants to live her life. “If you look at the basic principle of just doing right by other people, and treat people the way you want to be treated, and be fair, and keep an eye on those Ten Commandments, you’ll be fine,” she says. “Many people don’t know that. There’s so much more important things than making money and competing with one another. I mean, how boring is that?”

Which doesn’t mean that Joan doesn’t want to succeed in her life, she does, as long as it’s on her terms. When she decided to pursue being a coder, for instance, she gave Prevagen a try “to help me with my memory. And it just really helped. I liked that.”

For a woman who can drive her tractor right over the San Andreas Fault without flinching, getting to where she is today was as easy as a fresh baked farm pie.