A member of the Women Divers Hall of Fame, Valerie has been involved in shipwreck exploration and documentation for 20 years and is the 2007 recipient of the Historical Society of Michigan award for excellence of achievement in the collection, preservation and promotion of state and local history.
            Valerie is an accomplished writer who is a regular contributor to a number of magazines and periodicals and is the author of  Icebound! The Adventures of Young George Sheldon and the SS Michigan, and co-author of soon-to-be-released, From Hennepin to the Thousand Footers. She has also written and directed more than a dozen documentary films and has appeared on major television news networks as well as the Discovery Channel.  She is a regular presenter at museums, libraries, and film festivals sharing  the dramatic stories of ships gone missing on the Great Lakes. Her work has been featured in numerous publications, news stories, the book, Voices of the Sweetwater Seas by Bill Keefe and Shipwreck Hunter by Gerry Volgenau. With business partner William Lafferty, she expands of her belief that through entertainment one can educate. Together they provide exhibit design services for various museums.
         Serving as Director of Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates, Valerie spearheads the group's search for ships lost off Western Michigan which has resulted in the discovery of ten new wreck sites.  In one of many expeditions, Valerie and MSRA are working with Clive Cussler’s NUMA team in search of Northwest Flight 2501, a DC-4 that crashed into Lake Michigan in 1950.