Award winning author and member of the Women Divers Hall of Fame, Valerie is a 25+ year veteran shipwreck explorer who combines her passion documenting historic shipwrecks with her creative and interpretive abilities to preserve and promote Great Lakes maritime history. Her mission is to share the stories with adults and children through public lectures, museum exhibits, articles and books in ways to educate, entertain and inspire. She is the recipient of four awards from the Historical Society of Michigan: a 2007 award for excellence of achievement in the collection, preservation and promotion of state and local history, a 2008 award for her book Icebound! The Adventures of Young George Sheldon and the SS Michigan, a 2009 award for her book written with William Lafferty, Buckets and Belts: Evolution of the Great Lakes Self Unloaders, and a 2009 award shared with the Heritage Museum for a collaborative special museum exhibit and public event.

Valerie has written extensively for a variety of magazines anddocumentary films. She has appeared on major television news networks as well as the Discovery Channel and 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 the book, Voices of the Sweetwater Seas by Bill Keefe and Shipwreck Hunter by Gerry Volgenau. Valerie spearheads MSRA's search for ships lost off Western Michigan in collaboration with Clive Cussler of NUMA and David Trotter, which has resulted in the collective discovery of fiftenn new shipwrecks.Valerie is a partner of Lafferty van Heest & Associates, an exhibit design firm and serves as a director of the non-profit Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates.