About Joanelle Mulrain

Joanelle grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, on the mighty St. Johns River. An only child with two wonderful parents, her mother was a RN and community volunteer; her father a real estate developer. She danced on hotel stages in pre-school, swam on a swim team which captured a national record, attended a girl’s boarding school the last two years of high school, had too much fun the first year of college, and came home to finish at a local university and go to work. Her mother died suddenly when she was 23.

Her careers included interior design, travel agent, non-profit fundraiser, and fashion and special events director. She met her attorney husband and married in 1975. Her career path continued on into healthcare marketing communications for two decades where she distinguished herself with developing a breast prevention and detection program and was known for her dedication and hard work in various leadership positions for the health system as well as community.

Mother of two wonderful boys, her loving husband suddenly died a few months after her 82-year-old father, and she began the journey of being a widow and was challenged with single motherhood while raising those boys, then 11 and five. After a few years she “re-rooted” and changed her course by retiring, traveling with her sons, then settled down again by opening a small retail business dealing in antiques and architectural elements and becoming a master gardener with certification from a state university. Then, an old friendship brought her to the position of a regional director for a U.S. Senator resulting in the opening of the first U.S. Senate office in Jacksonville. Subsequently, due to a new peaked interest in politics and a fire in the belly to live in another city, her oldest boy entered college, and she and her youngest, then 11, left a newly expanded (from her design) 5,000-square-foot house and headed in her old Land Cruiser with only clothes, two computers and two bikes to live in the epicenter of the world, Washington, DC.

While living in Georgetown, she once again reinvented herself as a creative and energetic woman who parlayed various jobs from starting a national grassroots foundation for an internationally known civil and human rights activist and author, and even heading up the auction for Larry King's annual cardiac foundation event. She then strength-trained for three weeks and left with her oldest son to summit Mount Kilimanjaro, volunteered as a city leader for a national women's initiative during a national political campaign, rode her bicycle 50 miles every weekend after kayaking around Roosevelt Island twice every Sunday morning, and even obtained her crewing certificate for a single scull on the Potomac. Her goal in D.C. was to find a job – of which she found many and flourished; buy a piece of history - she purchased an 1820 home at 3210 P Street, NW, right in the middle of Georgetown; and live and new life. So, for nearly three years, Joanelle networked and grew to know Georgetown as her new neighborhood, and Washington as her place of residence.

Circumstances began yet a new chapter, and she came back “home” to Jacksonville where her younger son flourished in the latter years of high school, while her oldest changed courses from business to biology with the hope of going into the medical field. Always looking for adventure, she took her eldest son to Kathmandu to summit Base Camp at Mount Everest, while she stayed behind to shoot a photo essay on Nepal, then later the Kingdom of Bhutan, the latter a significant suite focused on the little monks in the Dzongs.

Back in Jacksonville, her signature cattail paintings and nature photography flourished and she scribed an outline for yet a new chapter in her very full life. This became the basis for her first, signed, numbered and limited edition book, "Re-Rooting: Life's Journey - and it sold out.Now in its second edition, the book became a beacon for yet another path on which she traveled and “Re-Rooting”™ became the signature theme from which a new career was born. More books are now being written and seminars presented focusing on life’s changes and challenges. Her left brain marketing consulting began to be challenged with her right brain creative juices as she forged new paths for her painting, photography and writing. While on this latest path, the word “Re-Rooting”™ became synonomous with Mulrain, and she continues to write and connect with women who have found her book and presentations meaningful in their personal lives. She has connected with new friends and become a mentor to some. It is through her own “Re-Rooting” that she is having the time of her life!

Florida Author, Speaker, Artist & Photographer Joanelle Mulrain
www.greatblueheronstudios.com
contact: jmulrain@re-rooting.com