As a Bronze and Age Group coach, Jen gained experience teaching group lessons since 1999 , Bronze Group since 2004 where she learned first hand from Coach Susan Guertin. She began coaching Gold Group for the 2021-22 season at Lynch/van Otterloo YMCA. She is a USMS Certified Coach Level 3. Jen's strengths as a Masters Coach at YNS derive from improving fitness and technique in a group setting so that swimmers can compete at high levels or simply enjoy built-in workout groups on a consistent basis.

Jen taught herself to swim at age 5 on a beach in Cape Ann, graduated from Marblehead High School, where she is an assistant Swim Team Coach, earned  her BA from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and her Masters from the University of Texas at Austin. She led an excavation of the first of 12 tombs discovered in an old olive grove/new lettuce patch which turned out to be the ancient necropolis of Metapontion (Greek) Metapontum (Roman) in Southern Italy. She was also fortunate to be one of 5 crew on a TransAtlantic sailboat crossing from Antigua, in the West Indies, to Pula, in Croatia with stops in the Azores, Calabria and Venice.

Jen has three children, a daughter who is a Landscape Architect, Lecturer and Research Associate  at Harvard, and boy/girl twins including a daughter who graduated with BS from UMass, Amherst, who is working full time at Minute Man Arc in Concord, MA, and a boy working HVAC systems and also employed at the Marblehead House of Pizza! 

Kayaking for open water swimmers became a passion after Jen served five years as Aquatic Director at Children’s Island Day Camp while her children were able to attend. We would love to set up open water swimming in Marblehead, Swampscott, Beverly,  or Gloucester if we could have a kayak stored by the beach and a volunteer safety officer on the beach during practices. Let Jen know if you have insight or would like to help set that up in 2023