A midwife for more than 30 years, Suzy is one of the co-founders of
Seattle Midwifery School, the oldest direct-entry midwifery program in the US. Active in the profession since the mid-70's Suzy has helped train more than 200 midwives; and, with her midwifery partner, Marge Mansfield, she has has assisted nearly 2000 families in their home and birth center practice, Seattle Home Maternity Service.

In the early 1980’s she was active in legislative reform of Washington’s Midwifery Act and served on the first Midwifery Advisory Committee, writing rules and developing the licensing examination. In 1983 she helped to launch the Midwives Association of Washington State and served as its first president from 1983-1985. In 1988 she earned a Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Washington’s Maternal and Child Health Program. She co-authored the first study of outcomes of licensed midwife-attended births in Washington, which was published in the journal Birth in 1994. More recently, she wrote a chapter for the second edition of The Labor Progress Handbook, by Penny Simkin and Ruth Ancheta (2005, Osney Mead, Oxford: Blackwell Science Ltd.).

Suzy has continued to be involved on many fronts in support of the development of professional midwifery, locally and nationally. Since 2002 she has served on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives (NACPM) and has recently become the president of that organization. Following the recent merger with Seattle Midwifery School, she is currently Chair of the Department of Midwifery at Bastyr University, where students earn a Master’s degree in Midwifery. She is actively involved in assisting students with graduate level research projects.