Joan Holman

Joan Holman resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota, however her early influences came from being born and raised in a small town in North Dakota, a sparsely populated state of just over 640,000 residents. With a history of rich farmlands, attention has recently turned to the western part of North Dakota and its Bakken oil fields, which are estimated to have approximately 2.1 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil.

As the years have progressed, Joan has come to appreciate her Midwestern roots and especially her childhood in North Dakota. Her biography of massage pioneer Sister Rosalnd Gefre -- "Hands That Touch, Hands That Heal" -- drew upon their common heritage of growing up in North Dakota.

In addition to being an author, book development specialist, and book marketing consultant, Joan has distinguished herself as one of America's top online marketing experts and was featured in the book "Online Marketing Heroes: Interviews with 25 Online Marketing Gurus" by Michael Miller.

Joan has also been featured in a new book published by Simon and Schuster titled "Dear Success Seeker: Widsom from Outstanding Women" by Michele R. Wright, Ph.D. The book contains advice from successful women spanning the worlds of entertainment, the arts, business, sports, medicine, law, science, politics, religion and academia. Among those women are philanthropist, producer and educator Camille Cosby, Ed.D., television and radio personality Gayle King, actresses Della Reese and Shirley Jones, tennis champion Billie Jean King, singer Patti LaBelle, and New York Times bestselling author Joyce Meyer.

Since childhood Joan has been fascinated with reading about the lives of real people and their overcoming of obstacles to achieve success. Joan created and produced the PBS television program "The Legacy of Achievement" to document the lives and lessons of some of today's foremost achievers. These are, as Joan says, not the people who are already famous, but the people who are very successful in their fields of endeavor. Joan states, "'The Legacy of Achievement' can be compared to a cross between the television programs 'Biography' and 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous' only it features people who are not famous.

Joan continues to build a video and film archive of great achievers through her Legacy of Achievement Foundation and among those she has interviewed include Sister Rosalind Gefre, Dr. Masaru Emoto (the author of the very popular "Messages from Water" books), Scott Olson (the original developer of the popular Rollerblades), motivational speaker and performing artist Patrick Combs (author of "Major in Success"), and many others.

Joan's motto is "To make the world a better place, make yourself a better person."