- Okay, well, let's go back to why you got into speech therapy.

- Yeah.

I really enjoyed, like, when I was younger, I really enjoyed teaching.

I wanted to maybe be a teacher - Really?

- Kinda, yeah.

- You'd have to deal with kids then.

- Yeah, I know.

(laughs) - Oh, gosh, yeah.

(Rob chuckling) - And then I really liked the medical side of things, so I always thought, like, nursing, too.

My mom was a preschool paraprofessional, and so she was like, "Hey, come to the school and observe some speech therapists," and that was back in middle school.

- Oh.

- And just kind of fell in love with it, and then kind of helped them out in high school, and kind of just went from there.

- You stuck with it?

- Yeah.

- 'Cause I mean, generally, even in high school kids, they change their mind, which is fine.

- Yeah, yeah.

- But from then on, that's what you were gonna do?

- Yeah, I was set on it.

And I liked the field, because there's so many different avenues you can get into.

So if you get bored in one area, you can just kind of work with adults, or work with, you know, (Rob chuckling) in the schools, or work in a hospital.

So there's so many different avenues that you can go into with the field, but knowing I wanted to, like, incorporate the horses- - Yeah.

- Having that passion with that, I think that's kinda helped to kinda stick around for a little bit.

- Did you go to school for it?

- Yep, so I went to undergrad and grad school at Northern Illinois University.

- Oh, couldn't get into a real school?

(both laughing) I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

I'm just joking, just joking.

It's a great school.

- It is, yeah, it's a great program.

- So you went there with the understanding that this is what you wanted to do when you got out?

- Yeah.

- Okay, and they have a program for that?

- So, yeah, it's specifically for speech language pathology.

In undergrad, I knew I wanted to... I got certified for therapeutic horseback riding, which is different from what I'm doing with the horses now.

- [Rob] Okay.

- But my mom and I both got certified, and so that kinda helped pave the way then for incorporating the horses into my practice.