Sharon Baker

Sharon is originally from St. Louis, the “show me” state. She completed her nursing degree at Southern Illinois University and moved to Atlanta to begin her career at Grady Hospital in the labor and delivery unit. She began attending Emory University and completed a master’s degree in maternal-child health and then moved to Richmond, Virginia to teach at the Medical College of Virginia. After obtaining her certification at MCV as a women’s health nurse practitioner, she returned to Georgia. She became a certified menopause practitioner through the North American Menopause Society.

Sharon has had a diverse background in the nursing field. She has taught undergraduate students, developed a nurse practitioner program, been an executive director for a women’s center and been in private practice. During her last six years of employment, she worked at a methadone clinic and then at a nursing home.

Her real passion is consumer education in the area of women’s health. In 1991, she determined that there was no credible information or programming for midlife women. In response, she utilized her past experience as a Lamaze instructor to format a similar type program for women entering their premenopausal and menopausal experience. This passion was the beginning of the Women’s Information Network, Inc. Sharon began recruiting all her friends and all willing acquaintances to assist her with the myriad tasks needed for form a non-profit organization that could reach out to women in a professional, yet personalized way.

The result has been seminars on menopause, osteoporosis, breast cancer, heart disease, domestic violence and many other topics of interest to women. Two programs developed by Sharon, “Midlife Momentum and There’s No Business Like Bone Business” were presented at the National Wellness Institute at the July 2003 conference.

On the state level, in 2001, Sharon was appointed by Governor Roy Barnes to the fifteen-member Georgia Commission on Women. She is still serving as a representative for the Northwest Georgia region. She has also served as Vice-Chairman for the Georgia Osteoporosis Initiative. In 1999, she received the GNA, District 7 “Nurse of the Year” award.

In 1997 Sharon wrote a grant to initiate a rape crisis center. This organization has subsequently become the Sexual Assault Center of Northwest Georgia. She has written and obtained numerous other grants to fund seminars and health fairs for Rome and the state of Georgia.

She is divorced and the mother of two grown sons. Sharon belongs to First Baptist Church of Rome and has become an avid Bible study student. Her passion is gardening and rearranging plants in her yard that just never seem to be arranged “just right.” She recently acquired a rescue dog that is training her!