RBW team member Dr. Judy Riffle is a former K-12 teacher, education specialist, and school district office administrator with degrees in Special Education (University of Texas at San Antonio), Deaf Education (University of the Incarnate Word), and Educational Leadership in Higher Education (University of Southern California). During her education career, Judy was named the 2009-2010 Santa Cruz Valley Unified School District #35 Office of Curriculum & Instruction Teacher of the Year. For the last nine years, Judy has been doing remote grant work. Owner of Santa Cruz Grants & Consulting, LLC, she has raised over $33 million through grants and fundraising. Judy is an active member of the Grant Professionals Association (GPA), a GPA-Approved Trainer, and has grants management experience handling nearly $8 million in federal, foundation, and online fundraising monies. Some clients she has partnered with are Sunnyside Unified School District, Purple Mountain Institute, Pidola, and IQsonics, LLC.

Her depth of knowledge, experience, and home life make her stand out from the crowd. While Judy’s home base is San Antonio, Texas, she spends most of the year traveling around in her fifth-wheel RV with her husband and their cat Bugsy. They live on the road for ten months each year, visiting places such as Oregon, California, Arizona, Washington, and Colorado. Judy loves to stay anywhere near the water or mountains, enjoying sunsets, beaches, and natural mineral water hot springs, but she also loves desert landscapes. She and her husband spend a month or more in a few of their favorite spots and get to know the local communities, but they spend about seven months out of the year moving around. They return to San Antonio in the winter for the holidays and spend a few months with their daughter and grandkids.

Working as a freelance grant professional has given Judy the flexibility to travel continuously, sometimes only moving from place to place on the weekends and holidays so that she can maintain a Monday through Thursday work schedule. But sometimes Judy works in her truck while her husband drives, and they pull over for Zoom meetings as needed. Even after moving around for several years, she still loves the lifestyle and says her biggest challenge is ensuring that she has good WiFi, especially in rural areas. But the tradeoff is that whenever she feels burned out, she can simply escape into nature and forget about work for a bit, while enjoying views of the mountains, the coastline, or one of many fabulous sunsets.