Julie F. Rodwell nee Kirkby was born and educated in the U.K. She went to a Quaker boarding school in her teen years, then studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) as a Joint Honors degree at Oxford University. Despite dating a couple of American Rhodes Scholars, she narrowly missed Bill Clinton who also studied PPE. She went on to do a graduate program in urban and regional planning at Glasgow University. At age 24 she emigrated first to Canada and then to the United States, and has lived in North America for 53 years, more than four decades of them in the Pacific Northwest. Her career has been spent in transportation planning and policy, and includes aviation, bus, Personal Rapid Transit (PRT), rail public transportation, national policy, freight mobility, and pipeline safety.
She is a past author of two nationally-published books, Essentials of Aviation Management, a college textbook about Fixed Base Operator service companies, and The Complete Book of Raw Food, and has recently (as J.F. Rodwell) published a third, Green New Cities of Tomorrow about developing sustainable American communities as a way to shrink our carbon footprints and accommodate our projected population growth.
Her fourth book, Say What??? is in its early stages, and is a collaboration with a colleague who has lifelong hearing loss. Julie, too, is losing her hearing. This book is a handbook to enable one’s hearing family, friends and service providers to understand better the often-frustrating life led by their non- or little hearing family member, friend or client, and to keep hearing-impaired people in the loop. Some 50 percent of Americans ages 75 and up have hearing loss, although some are in denial. And hearing loss occurs in much younger people too.
Julie is a founding member of Winslow Cohousing, the first cohousing development in North America, and served on its Board during the construction phase. She’s been an American citizen since the late 1970s. She’s also served on the board of a family homeless shelter in Olympia, Wash.
In her free time she designs and creates one-of-a-kind semi-precious stone and glass beaded jewelry, and volunteers in her community.