Dana Rondel Olmsted received her Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Eastern Connecticut State University and a Master of Arts degree in Liberal Studies and Humanities from Wesleyan University. She is currently employed by CIGNA Corporation working under the title of Infrastructure Engineer. Her responsibilities include software development and integration, vendor management and project and process management. Her career at CIGNA began in 1991 as an INROADS intern, an opportunity that allowed her to gain the necessary personal and professional skills to obtain a full time position with the company in 1993.
Dana was born and raised in Hartford Connecticut and is still a resident. As an active member of the Hartford community since the age of nine she has participated in an array of community and corporate events. Through her affiliation with INROADS Dana has hosted awards banquets and facilitated workshops and seminars. She has also mentored elementary, high school and college students, volunteered at local soup kitchens and homeless shelters. While serving on the executive board for the National INROADS Alumni Association she held the position of local board Representative for the Greater Hartford and Springfield offices, project manager for the bi-annual INROADS National conferences and Parliamentarian. She has also been involved with other organizations such as Junior Achievements, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated and the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc. Her community and corporate involvement earned her several recognitions and awards which include: Who’s Who of Professional Women, an article written about her life in Black Collegian Magazine, Leadership for the 21st Century, Operating Values Award and a People’s Choice Award.
Ms. Olmsted currently enjoys a successful career at CIGNA and has garnered much recognition for her achievements. In addition she is pursuing her dream as a successful artist. She believes that true enrichment comes from the opportunity to live out the desires of one’s heart. Being influenced by her father, an artist, and mother whose soulful and creative spirit manifested itself in everything she did from cooking to playing a flute for a jazz band, Dana found herself experimenting with dance and poetry. Through the years she has worked on developing her skills in dance and writing by becoming involved with the Artist Collective of Hartford, leading her own dance troupe, writing poems and inspirational pieces for local events, attending writer’s conferences and concentrating in creative writing and dance classes at Wesleyan University.
It was while in graduate school that Dana had an epiphany. As she was writing a case study regarding the negative affects of technology and other forms of media on the mind, body and spirit, she began to learn more about the therapeutic affects of dance and writing. Dance and writing could influence “a healing” of the soul by re-integrating the human mind, body and spirit as it has done for her during times that she has experienced high levels of stress and/or depression. She has also witnessed the positive impact that it has had on others.
As a student in dance therapy classes at Wesleyan University children and adults of all ages were brought into the dance studio to talk about physical and mental conditions that they were born with or developed as a child or adult. Some of these individuals were born blind, suffered from autism or cerebral palsy or were diagnosed with schizophrenia or manic depression. What appeared to be a common thread woven throughout each of these individuals’ story was how dance movement/therapy changed their lives. Just listening to the stories alone brought tears to most of the student’s eyes including Dana’s. During this time Dana also reflected back on her childhood, remembering how her mother danced around the house with her and her older brother who developed cerebral palsy as a toddler. She believed that music, dance and physical touch transformed her brother’s life and were the catalysts which influenced him to walk again. It was from that point on that she decided that dance and writing were more than just a means of entertainment they are energies, creative and spiritual, which have the power to influence and transform lives in the most positive ways. Dana is now freelancing as a writer, storyteller, speaker, choreographer and dancer.
