Elena McCarty

Elena McCarty was born and raised in Moscow, Russia. When she was 10 years old, she fell in love with the English language while reading the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – especially the novels featuring Sherlock Holmes. She says her life path was decided the moment she discovered the famous detective: she attended the English magnet school and Moscow University of Foreign Languages, and she worked as an English teacher, as an Intourist interpreter for Greek- and English-speaking visitors, and as an English instructor in college. During the tumultuous years of the fall of the Soviet Union, she was hired to interpret and later to work in Sales and Marketing in the first Soviet-American joint venture in the hotel business. “I felt like a character in an adventure book.”  This undertaking was fascinating for Elena, as well as for other people working there, both Russian and American.  One of the latter became her husband, resulting in Elena’s relocation to the United States where she has lived for the past 17 years. 

Elena loves to explore and learn new things.  This desire for knowledge took Elena back to school in the Twin Cities, where she got her MBA in marketing.

Aside from studying she enjoys knitting, sewing, cooking, and playing golf. Her favorite pass time is to curl up with a book and one of her two black cats.