ABOUT KARLA

Karla grew up in San Diego where she was a pre-school teacher and owned a in-home day care business while raising her children. In 1994, she moved to Arizona where she finished a degree in Health Services Management. She managed a hospice in-patient unit for several years working with patients and families of the terminally ill. She left hospice to take a part time job with Mayo Clinic working in their registration department so she could spend more time as a stay-at-home Mom with her children.

On August 6, 2003 her husband Brent, Karla and their two daughters along with two of their daughters friends were returning home to Phoenix from a California family vacation when they had a tragic automobile accident. Brent, Lindsey, and Bridget’s best friend died as a result of this accident. After Karla crossed over with Brent and Lindsey, she was told, “it was not her time, she had to go back.” Karla knew she had more to do on this earth.

In the days and weeks that followed after Karla left the hospital, Karla personally experienced the lack of support services available in the community for assisting families and loved ones with sudden loss from the disabling grief of a fatal vehicular accident.

It was from this experience, Six months after the accident, that Karla was inspired to create a way for people to have emotional healing and a way to move forward in life. Safe Harbor was born. Karla founded Safe Harbor Support as a non-profit organization to serve those who have lost loved ones due to sudden loss. Karla has created a unique approach to the grief healing process through developing an eight week support group/workshop, and has trained facilitators to direct the safe harbor approach to mentoring those who are lost in the grief process.

Karla teaches private classes, holds workshops and does public speaking on grief and sudden loss. She is an educator on sudden death working with fire, police departments, and crisis responders. She also teaches individuals in upper level management and human resources how to understand employees who struggle in the work place with loss. In 2005 she became certified as a Life Coach, and since then, including having her private practice, has attended and facilitated several workshops.

Karla’s practice embraces one on one as well as couples coaching and corporate coaching. Karla specializes in grief, relationship and personal transformation coaching, empowering people to live life in the present moment.