A Colorado native and a California CPA, Kathleen Erie brings a varied and useful career to her role as Business Manager for the Mountain School . After graduating from the University of Arizona in Tucson , she began what would be a nine-year stay with what was then Price Waterhouse in Los Angeles , transferring to New York as a manager to work initially in the Continuing Education department. She subsequently worked for some of the largest companies in the world, including Xerox, Trans World Corporation, British American Tobacco, as well as some of the smallest, including her own. While much of her corporate work was in the field of internal audit, Kathleen has also acted as chief financial officer for subsidiaries and as "virtual controller" for numerous small companies and not-for-profits. One of the best things about the corporate internal audit work is that it took her, in effect, around the world four times.

Kathleen's interest in Telluride began in 1977 when she was looking for a southern Colorado location for a ski vacation. Telluride came to the top of the list and was a regular destination until she and her Austrian-born husband (who became English when he was four) bought a Ski Ranch lot in 1983. While the commitment was there, it took until the fall of 1999 to make the move permanent, which is a pleasure every day.