Suzanne, Studio Director

Suzanne is so happy to join Blue Ridge Yoga following more than 20 years of running people-focused operations and projects with the Arts & Culture Alliance and many years as a regular participant in Knoxville’s yoga community. In her professional roles, she has overseen day-to-day operations, supervised and supported staff and volunteers, and helped create places where people feel welcome and want to return. She coordinated exhibitions, events and tours at the Emporium Center for thousands of yearly visitors.

Suzanne is a Knoxville native and attended Farragut Primary through High schools, the University of Tennessee (where she marched tuba in the Pride of the Southland while majoring in Flute Performance) and Virginia Tech (MFA in Arts Administration / professional coffee consumer). Her first overseas trip to China at age 22 allowed her to walk along a section of the Great Wall. After one year of grad school, she spent a summer solo backpacking around England, Ireland and Scotland, volunteering at music festivals such as Bath, Salisbury, Proms at St. Jude’s and Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Her introduction to yoga came via DVD in 2006 which propelled a desire to take classes in a variety of studio settings from many local instructors. She appreciates and is inspired by the dedication, confidence, creativity, hard work and deep care instructors put into leading a class as well as the vulnerability and curiosity students bring.

Suzanne wants to live in a world where all spaces feel safe, the ASICS Gel-Nimbus 26 is in perpetual production, and she could hop on a plane any time she wants to see friends who live far away. When she’s not at Blue Ridge Yoga, you can find her running (and often chasing her two children), swimming, plotting chili cook-off triumphs against her family members, nurturing plants, laughing at New Yorker cartoons, and trying to convince her husband that milk chocolate is better than dark.