A master's in English opened the door to teach at a Christian college in Iowa, but Larry soon discovered he missed his involvement with students on the high school level. When he was encouraged to join the education department by his academic dean, he responded with enthusiasm. Little did he realize that this new direction would end up involving him in a myriad of activities outside of the typical Christian school - such as being a teacher's aid in a migrant school and teaching an Outward Bound graduate course on the Green River.

Larry's role in education, which involved supervising student teachers in a variety of K-12 schools, confronted him with a sad reality. Teachers who had completed excellent teacher-ed programs often abandoned many of their original goals for teaching when they felt the crush of the everyday demands of the classroom. He also noted that some education courses seemed to be preparing students for a world that no longer existed. This turned his focus to working with teachers in the "trenches."

Aging parents (and missing the Pacific Northwest) initiated a move from teaching in Iowa to join a publishing company in Seattle. Within a year of this move, Al Greene (Larry's mentor in his early years of teaching) recruited him to join Alta Vista's board-a tremendous opportunity and blessing which allows him to work with an organization that develops programs and services to help teachers (and their schools) become the teachers they feel God is calling them to be.

Now retired from the publishing world, Larry and his wife Judy make many cross-country trips to visit their four children and twelve grandchildren in Wisconsin, Michigan and Texas. They evidently stayed in the Midwest too long.