Margo started her professional career as a professor of Sociology. She earned a Masters and PhD from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. Her studies and teaching experiences exposed her to many different people and ideas. Her last teaching position was as a traveling professor with the University of Maryland’s European Division; for over three years, she lived and taught on military bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Djibouti and Germany. During this time, she became a part of the military community. In her spare time on base, she became a de facto counselor to many of the troops she encountered and decided to return to school to get another Masters in Counseling Psychology in a program exclusively for those in or attached to the U.S. military. She focused all of her coursework and research on understanding Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and exploring treatment options.

 

When she returned from overseas, Margo interned at the Vet Center in Worcester, Massachusetts. It was there that she first got the opportunity to put her knowledge about combat stress to work helping people. She was able to counsel many veterans and their loved ones during this time. There was one group of Vietnam Veterans that met weekly on Monday mornings who were not so happy to have a civilian woman join their group; if there was ever an empty chair in the circle; it was always next to her. Week by week, she showed them her good intentions and her desire to understand and help. The veterans in this group became her informants about what it meant to live with combat trauma in daily life and how it affected their work, family, relationships and identity. Over time, she gained their trust and acceptance and they came to value her input and the chairs next to her were no longer left vacant.

 

Margo facilitated addiction groups before joining the National Veterans Crisis Line. Margo is able to use her academic knowledge and the things she learned from that group of Vietnam Veterans to help veterans. She created Equinox Ranch’s program as a means of filling the gaps of existing treatment modalities and creating a program which supports veterans throughout a year-long program.

 

Education: A.A.S. from Paul Smith’s College in Culinary Arts; Bachelors in Sociology from Rutgers University; Master’s degree and Ph.D. from Northeastern University and a Masters in Counseling Psychology from the University of Maryland/ Bowie State University.