Series Coordinating Producer can mean many things - in Rachel's case, it meant being both the brains and the heart of the entire crazy endless project that became HDWN. For a lot of years, it was just the three of us -- Michael and Shari and Rachel -- with Rachel's energy and enthusiasm a major sustaining force. She ate, slept, dreamt the footage. Simply put, if you are in these films anywhere, Rachel knows you - and is looking out for you...

We sometimes thought her job was far harder than ours - we would return home to New York with stories, masses of footage (and no notes - there was no assistant) and it was Rachel's task to make order and to synthesize. She had to become both the project’s technical wizard, designing and managing a complex data base system, and also its resident scholar and intellectual, absorbing reams of background material, position papers, drafts of bills. Along the way she fell in love -- with a fellow filmmaker, Aaron Mathes; with the system of American Democracy, and in her own way, with Sen. Robert Byrd.

It was Rachel's job to keep an eye on the big picture. She had to give the advanced-degree lecture on our complex story to each new editor and associate producer, educate and supervise a growing staff, and help us make an organic and integrated series out of the scraps and fragmentary adventures our camera brought back to her. She's been spooky at times. One of us would say.. "Oh hey, didn't we shoot something like that a couple of years ago?" and Rachel would say: "Try roll 347, shot 32..."

In the last few months, Rachel has been the Web Master. The time line we are so proud of is her work.. and when our blockbuster game Getting to Sixty is ready, that will be a big part of Rachel too. As we wind down we're not sure whether Rachel will next run a corporation or teach advanced courses in political science and the democratic system, but whatever she finds, watch out, world!