About me
Jeff Kelley
I was born and raised in Mount Clemens, Michigan a suburb of Detroit. In 1989-90 there was an exchange student in my high school, Louise Lepley, from Machecoul, a small town near Nantes in the west of France. She went back to France for University and I attended the University of Michigan. In 1994 she came back to the states as a teaching assistant at the University of Washington in Seattle and we spent as much time as possible throughout the year. We were married in July of 1995 and so far so good!
In September of 2000, while living in California, our son Liam was born. Meanwhile, I was offered the chance to transfer to Europe for work and in August of 2001 we got packed up and moved to France. We stayed at a long stay hotel in Paris for 45 days while we searched for a place to live and waited for our belongings that were being trucked to the east coast and shipped by boat. I barely spoke any French so I immediately started an intensive French course (4 hours per day for 1 month). We eventually found a place to rent in Port Marly, a small town west of Paris near Saint Germain en Laye. Our daughter Nolwen was born in March of 2003. Although we enjoyed the area we were in, the rent was expensive and we were getting the itch to buy our own place. We lived there for 3 years before buying a house and moving to Saint Jean de Boiseau (near Nantes). This brought us closer to Louise’s family and into a region with affordable housing.
I work for an American software company and work out of my home office when not traveling. I am in the consulting group and work for major enterprise clients across Europe.