Karen started with Gabbart in March 2022 and lives in Bettendorf, Iowa which is part of the Quad Cities on the far east border of Iowa and Illinois.  She is the Territory Manager for Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and Nebraska.

Karen is originally from Cedar Rapids, Iowa where she has been a REALTOR for almost 20 years, currently holding her license with Keller Williams.  She saw first hand in raising her 3 children, Esabelle, Melanie, and Jaxson in the Cedar Rapids Community School District, the importance that school communication can be to a parent!  She was even a trustee for the board of the Cedar Rapids Community School District Foundation for three years as a parent and REALTOR voice. 

Karen graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Cedar Rapids and went on to the University of Iowa where she studied history and psychology.  Which means that she didn't teach, but she knows a lot of useless trivia and she uses psychology every day! 

In her free time, she still sells the occasional house and loves to work with her repeat clients.  She also loves to shop for antiques and go to estate sales and shows to repurpose and design new uses for old things.  She enjoys spending time with her three now grown children, her family, and their three cats,  as well as traveling with her boyfriend Robert and finding new places to explore.  They love trying new foods, cocktails, and craft beer and wine from places that we travel to. 

She is looking forward to meeting with schools and providing them the tools to stay in touch with the parents of their students and to empower the students and teachers to succeed. Telling the stories of our schools to their communities and showing others what great young leaders we have is so important.  School websites are used as one of many points of interest when people are searching for employment and where they might want to send their children to school.  Karen loves to share all that Gabbart can do to strengthen the parent/teacher communication and having a central location for parents to get all of the information about what is going on at their child's school.