Jillian Vickers

Jillian Vickers, Office Manager, is a recent graduate of CSU Northridge in Southern California where she graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Deaf Studies with an emphasis on ASL Studies and Deaf Literature. Now that she's back in Northern California she is delighted to work with CQ and continue her career with American Sign Language as well as involve herself with Deaf Community.

At CSUN she was a member of the Deaf Sorority, Alpha Sigma Theta, where she put together a newsletter during the school semesters' events. She is now the editor of our newsletter here at Communique.

Born in Los Angeles, raised in Colorado and the small town of Ukiah, she is glad to land in Santa Rosa. She admits she is not a fan of small towns.

Her first exposure to ASL was when her friend taught her this very important sentence "I want to go get ice cream" and from then on, she decided she needed to know more. So she enrolled at SRJC to take ASL classes. Her first teacher was Joe Schmitz. Jillian says about that experience, "Joe was really my inspiration to take more classes and go to deaf events and really involve myself more in the community, so I thank him for everything."

Jillian also played water polo at the junior college which kept her in shape and out of trouble.

Her dream for the future is to run a Doxie farm. When asked about this, she says, "It's funny. I love Doxies, the 'hot dog' dogs? I'd like to have a Doxie farm. They'd be so cute." She also dreams of becoming an interpreter and spending more time with the Deaf community here in Santa Rosa.

Her funny story:

Growing up in Colorado in a ski resort town, I was exposed to skiing really early as a kid. At 18 months my dad would take my up to the top of the mountain and teach me his methods. Mostly that ended up with me in front of him, in-between his skis speeding down the hill as I screamed "FASTER!!"

Of course my parents thought it would be best if I took some lessons.The lessons were were after lunch aka my nap time. I was too tired to ski and being that I knew myself pretty well at 5 years old, I would just sit down in the snow and not move. The instructors eventually gave up trying to get me to stand and would leave me alone. So I passed out, right there in the snow till someone came back to get me after lessons. Nap time was nap time, and if that meant sleeping through my ski lesson at the bottom of the mountain, so be it. Besides, that meant I got to come back later and go down the mountain with my dad clocking 50 miles an hour.

Pictured: Jillian, 18 months old, in Steamboat Springs, Colorado at her Grandmother's Vacation home.