Maggie Garside Heilman breaks all the rules for girls and women. Born in Queens, New York, she was the youngest of four children, one of whom is Maggie’s twin sister, an astonishing fact considering how clearly there can be only one Maggie.

Maggie’s love of sailing and being on the water began at about age 7. Her father built an 18-foot, fiberglass-on-wood sailboat in their backyard. She can still see him building the tapered wooden mast and her mother sewing the boat’s main and jib. The boat was painted white with turquoise trim and was named Misty. She recalls the feeling of being on the water during family sails, with her older sister as 1^st mate and her brother as 2^nd mate. According to Maggie, her mother’s nervousness kept them from ever getting into trouble, leaving only good memories.

The sailing ended when she was 11 and the family moved to the farmlands of Western New Jersey. Maggie pursued track, softball, and cheerleading in grammar school and high school. Two middle school teachers sparked her interest in science. They made learning fun by getting her to ask questions and to view things in different and creative ways. She particularly liked biology.

Maggie started flying airplanes in high school, getting discounted lessons by way of her waitressing at the airport café, and progressing as far as a cross-country solo. Not satisfied with flying the planes, in college she started jumping out of them, logging scores of jumps. She also got her motorcycle license, which she holds to this day. She survived all her jumps and motorcycle rides, taking away a bachelor's in biology with a concentration in chemistry when she graduated.

Out of college, Maggie found work in the chemistry labs of pharmaceutical companies. She migrated to the business side, marketing scientific apparatuses for the Education Division of the Ohaus Scale Company. She later joined their California division, teaching the metric system to K-8 students. She then spent about 10 years at Applied Biosystems, in Foster City. For the past 26 years, Maggie has worked as a residential real estate agent on the mid-peninsula.

Contemplating what she would do when her daughter left for college, and influenced by boating experiences during a trip to Southeast Asia, Maggie decided to get back into sailing. In 2018 she learned about sunset sails at a Sequoia Yacht Club event and was soon on a boat. Today she is an active racer and half-owner of a sporty 18-foot sailboat called an Open 5.70.

In April we offered an SSC bumper sticker to the first person to identify the following things about the April banner photo:

1) The name of the peak in the background

2) What is wrong with the picture

The background peak is Angel Island's Mt. Livermore. What was wrong with the picture is that it was flipped 180 degrees to make it more balanced when logos were applied.

Call of the Sea's Steven Woodside correctly named the peak and won the sticker. We were lenient with Steven, since nobody got the answer to both parts. Our point was to show the brain's remarkable ability to recognize patterns, even when those patterns are reversed!

The crew of a boat racing in the 2023 MEXORC shows off their great attitude in front of Puerto Vallarta's hi-rise skyline. If you are part of a team, the attitude you bring can make the difference between being invited back or being a one-time Charlie. Your personal experience will also be shaped by your attitude, whether a team is involved or not.