Jan McCleery

Jan McCleery spent her career in Silicon Valley as a software engineer and leader in aerospace, enterprise applications, and technology. Lured by the dot-com boom, she co-founded a successful start-up, Azerity, creating solutions for semiconductor manufacturing companies.

After retirement, she wrote her first book about her start-up experience, "It Starts with an Idea," which received glowing reviews. She continued writing her memoirs, children books, and most recently her successful spy novel series: "The Secret Lives of Jessie Monroe" about the CIA agent Juno Wolfe.

She and her husband are "snowbirds" spending summers in Northern California and winters in the Palm Springs area. She was the founder and past president of Save the California Delta Alliance, a non-profit grassroots organization dedicated to keeping the Delta a safe and healthy environment. Proceeds from her children's books, "The Farmer and the Fish" and "Sassy the Salmon," are donated to the Alliance.