Pic of the week
by Greg Frucci

Willet at Dawn Reflective Solitude © Greg Frucci

About

Amy Howard

Hi. I’m Amy. I’m a local nature guide, historian and techie. I use technology to get more nature with less clutter. I currently give Guana kayak tours for income while working on a historical novel. I use this blog to provide better answers to many of the questions people ask me.

Clubs

GTM Reserve

GTM Reserve is a government program researching and protecting the Guana-Matanzas estuary. I have served GTM in various public education capacities since 2023.

North Guana Outpost

I began giving eco kayak tours for North Guana Outpost in 2025. Founded and run by a local family, they are the nicest organization I’ve ever worked with.

South Ponte Vedra Civic Association

I joined the South Ponte Vedra Civic Association in 2013. We are the modern instance of the South Ponte Vedra Association, who made sure Guana did not get sold for development in the 1980s. Nowadays, we run social and civic activities out of our fire station-turned clubhouse. I served as Treasurer from 2021-2025 and provided free tech support to members. Now I lead the native gardening effort.

St. Augustine Historical Society

For me as a historian, the Saint Augustine Historical Society has been a basic necessity since 2008. In addition to enjoying the lectures and events, I have served temporarily as docent of the Oldest House Museum and archivist at the research library. They are doing a great job with their mission to “acquire, preserve, and interpret the historical resources of St. Augustine.”

World Affairs Council of Jacksonville

I maintain my membership with the World Affairs Council of Jacksonville to hear both sides of global issues in a peaceful manner. It is a place of sanity in a polarized culture.

Church of Eleven22

I moved my church life to Eleven22 to be with family after my daughter died in May 2026. It has been a blessing in so many ways. I look foward to serving the LORD through this pillar of the community.

Creds

Web Designer

Bachelor of English

Certified English Teacher

Certified Chemistry Teacher

Celebration Care Partner

Old Testament Survey

Google Ads Search

Copyright Specialist

Creative Commons Certification

Google Analytics

Online Education Strategies

Intro to Computer Science

AI for Work and Life

First Aid / CPR

Software

Words

@Voice
Abbyy FineReader
Adobe Acrobat
Amazon Kindle
Apple Pages
Audible
Constant Contact
Corel WordPerfect
Duolingo
Google Docs
Google Gmail
Google Keep Notes
Google Slides
Google Translate
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft Publisher
Microsoft Word
Outline 4D
PARES
Rosetta Stone
Thesaurus.com
Windows Notepad
Windows WordPad
WordPress
YouVersion

Numbers

Cougar Mountain Payroll
Google Sheets
Lotus 123
Microsoft Excel
Peachtree Accounting
Quickbooks
Quicken

Pictures

Adobe Photoshop
Adobe XD
AutoCAD
Canva
Figma
Gimp
Google Chrome ColorPick Eyedropper
Google Earth
Google Photos
Google Slides
Google Street View
PastPerfect
Pixlr
Windows Paint
Windows Snipping Tool

Video

DaVinci Resolve
Capcut
Clipchamp
Windows Movie Maker

Web

Adobe Dreamweaver
Apple iTunes
Big Commerce
Blackboard
CSS
Cyberduck
Divi
DaVinci Resolve
Elementor
GoDaddy
Google Ads Search
Google Adwords
Google Calendar
Google Chrome
Google Chrome Remote Desktop
Google DevTools
Google Hangouts
Google Maps
Google Meet
Google Play Music (gone like a freight train)
Google Sites
Google Tasks
Google Voice
Healthie
HTML
Javascript
Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Mozilla Firefox
Norton Internet Security
Norton Password Manager
Notepad
Notepad++
OBS Studio
Pandora
PHP
PHP myAdmin
SiteGround
Skype
Visual Studio Code
Wikipedia
WikiSpaces
WooCommerce
WordPress
YouTube
YouTube Music
XAMPP
Zoom

Data

Amicus Attorney
ArcGIS
County Tax Appraiser
Google Analytics
Google Contacts
Google Data Studio
Google Drive
Google Forms
Google My Business
Google Search
Google Sheets
iNaturalist
Microsoft Access
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft OneDrive
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft SQL Server
MySQL
PARES
PastPerfect
pcLaw
Salesforce
TIDES
Windows Explorer
WordPress

Social media

Not for me.

Digital Footprints

Marketing

Visit St. Augustine

Researched and wrote content for historical and business pages. Edited graphics with Photoshop and web pages with Notepad++. Created a feedback loop where tourists submit questions to the website, which are forwarded to local merchants to reach out and answer. Led...

St. Johns County Visitor & Convention Bureau

Designed and produced a walking-tour map of historic African-American heritage sites, which was distributed at city visitor centers. Researched and wrote article on St. Augustine’s art scene for the county’s annual Visitor’s Guide.

Inn on Charlotte

Investigated a discrepancy in web-ad referrals reported by our website and received by the inn. Implemented Google Analytics, which confirmed the shortage. Used GA, Excel, and competitors’ ad prices to calculate the value of actual referrals. Credited the inn with...

MGT Information

Typed and edited interviews with executives from chemical companies. Compiled data with Lotus 123 and Excel. Produced reports for interested vendors using Freelance Graphics and Microsoft Word. Implemented digital merging of report elements, eliminating an entire...

House of Sea and Sun

Analyzed current market standing by downloading reviews from various websites. Compiled ratings and comments in Excel to reveal trends. Produced a report of findings in Word with targeted opportunities for improvement. Produced 12 monthly newsletters in Constant...

Bed and Breakfasts of St. Augustine

Recruited a B&B host and staged a vacation scene to represent the Bed and Breakfasts of St. Augustine in marketing materials.

H&S Consulting

Analyzed market standing of rad-waste service companies. Used the Thomas Register to identify executives in nuclear industries, and interviewed them about their radwaste needs and vendors. Compiled data in Excel and produced reports in Word for sale to vendors.

Electronic Communications, Inc.

Installed QuickBooks and Microsoft Office and trained office manager how to use them for bookkeeping and business correspondence. Bookkeeping, training.

Thomas E. Duke, Architect

AutoCAD and QuickBooks. Measured and sketched existing office spaces with pencil and paper, then drafted them with precise dimensions in AutoCAD. Processed bookkeeping with QuickBooks. Replaced DOS-based AutoCAD with Windows, eliminating the need for a separate...

River Hills Chiropractic Clinic

Converted to digital. Installed medical practice software and initiated electronic claims filing. Entered data from all paper patient files.

Dr. Duke Health

Patient portal, web content, finances. Created online templates in Healthie Patient Portal for patient intake forms and office visit notes.Built a spreadsheet in Excel to show trends in patient body scans, which is automatically updated upon opening by a query that...

Lori Re, Attorney at Law

Set up internal network and installed Amicus Attorney legal software for all staff positions. Integrated PC Law billing software with Amicus for automatic population of invoices from client files. Built templates in Microsoft Word for legal documents. Edited...

Tech Packaging

Converted bookkeeping from DOS-based Peachtree to Windows-based QuickBooks. Modified Cougar Mountain payroll software to electronically retrieve timecard data from remote facilities. Implemented electronic direct deposit. Implemented scanning of personnel records,...

Chase Manhattan Bank

Prepped student loan documents for scanning. Entered account data in computer to identify scanned document images. Recovered misfiled documents using clues in the company database. Calculated department labor costs and found a 70% drop in productivity after a change...

Goodwill Industries of North Florida

Created self-calculating forms in Google Sheets to replace manual calculations of cash register contents. Built a Google Doc that automatically generates employee performance appraisals by pulling data from daily production reports. Used Google Drawings to draw a map...

Amazon

Created a time log in Excel for employees to track TOT “time off task,” with checkboxes for common obstacles to being “on task.” Printed half-sheet copies to share with coworkers. Compiled time logs for several weeks and produced a report for local management to see...

St. Augustine Transfer Co.

As a tour guide licensed by the City of St. Augustine, I built a digital timeline of historical data in the order of heritage sites passed on the carriage route. I shared the timeline with carriage patrons and other tour guides.

My Spanish Florida

Collected and digitized over 400 primary and secondary sources on colonial Spanish Florida. Segmented each source into datable paragraphs in a spreadsheet. Exported paragraphs to Access and added dates, titles, and citations to each. Built a report in Access which...

African-American Heritage of St. Augustine

Developed an online channel for the Black History of St. Augustine. Researched and wrote articles about historic African-Americans in St. Augustine. Created new articles and links on existing articles in Wikipedia to guide searchers to my channel. Designed a...

Flagler College

Despite being an English major, I entered the “Capital Ideas” contest for the School of Business. I used Photoshop and PowerPoint to design a music chair for deaf people. I linked out to the existing technology that could convert specific components of music to...

University of Florida

Scanned entire card catalogs for colonial Spanish Florida microfilm collections Stetson B. Kennedy (14,000 cards) and Santo Domingo (600 cards). Extracted text from scanned images using Abbyy FineReader and imported them as individual rows in Excel. Used Excel text...

Paxon School for Advanced Studies

Teaching Honors Chemistry, I coordinated the schoolwide science fair through a web portal. I created teacher websites for myself and my colleague. I guided students through building their own websites to display their science fair projects and progress without the...

Northeast Florida Regional Science and Engineering Fair

As a Chemistry teacher at Paxon School for Advanced Studies, I coordinated science fair participation schoolwide by building a website for paperwork submissions, instructions, interactions, and live updates. I volunteered at NEFRSEF by screening student projects for...

Landrum Middle School

Judged science fair which included every student in the school. Deliberated with other judges to determine finalists. Judged projects and recruited other judges in exchange for e-newsletter services.

Nease High School

As an Associate Teacher in Science, I found many ways to maximize time and resources. I compiled individual student test data to target specific student needs. I used Google to translate materials for foreign students. I built a web portal to coordinate science fair...

St. Augustine High School

As an Associate Teacher in History and Science, I found many ways to maximize time and resources. I compiled individual student test data to target specific student needs. I built a web portal to coordinate science fair with students throughout the school. I created...

St. Johns County Science Fair

As an Associate Teacher, I coordinated participation for students from St. Augustine High School by building a free WikiSpaces website for paperwork submissions, instructions, interactions, and live updates. At the time, it was called River Region East Science Fair.

Ridgeview High School

As President of the IB Booster Club, I maximized communications and coordination. I built a contact list for students to carpool. I recruited sponsors from local businesses. I organized speakers and activities for socials. I compiled and distributed monthly...

St. Augustine Historical Society

As a volunteer, docent, and researcher, I scanned historic photographs and cataloged them in Past Perfect for online display and sale. I presented historical tours at the Oldest House Museum. Meanwhile, I continued adding data to my own historical database, which...

Haitian-American Historical Society

As a writer of local history, I published online articles and Wikipedia entries that inspired a visit from the Haitian Ambassador Raymond Joseph, Florida Senator Tony Hill, and Miami Consulate dignitaries. They invited me to join them as a local expert on their...

Celebration Church

Received training to volunteer in the Care Partner program. Downloaded a digital copy of the workbook to my laptop and completed the exercises in Microsoft Word. I then added notes from class lectures in the same document, without printing anything. I was then able to...

South Ponte Vedra Civic Association

As newsletter editor in 2014, I converted the print-and-mail newsletter to a digital e-newsletter. As Treasurer and Historian, I digitized the Association archives. They are now stored in a shared secure folder for any board member to access remotely. I am building an...

Pie in the Sky

This organization works to get citizen migrant workers into stable lives. To that end, I taught a migrant worker how to read and apply for jobs via an iPad someone had given him. Then I built web pages specifically for him to access through the tablet. I built him an...

Learn to Read

I volunteered as a reading tutor, but the client asked for help with math and money. I downloaded math repetition games on an iPad and walked her through them until she was fast with arithmetic. I also designed personalized math worksheets for her to take home and...

Miss Carrie Foundation for Homeless Students

As publicist, I built a website to display the organization's mission, activity, and link for donations. I built a corresponding Facebook page for regular updates and sharing photos from events. I created rack cards in Photoshop and distributed them at events. I wrote...

Church at the Island

I converted the pastor's sermon notes into PowerPoints and bulletins with fill-in-the-blank outlines. Since this was before YouTube, I also created lyric videos for the worship songs.

Ashton-Brighton Homeowners Association

As Vice President, I produced all archival documentation, notices, and newsletters.

Local supporter

About

Amy Howard

Clubs

GTM Reserve

North Guana Outpost

South Ponte Vedra Civic Association

St. Augustine Historical Society

World Affairs Council of Jacksonville

Church of Eleven22

Creds

Web Designer

Bachelor of English

Certified English Teacher

Certified Chemistry Teacher

Celebration Care Partner

Old Testament Survey

Google Ads Search

Copyright Specialist

Google Analytics

Online Education Strategies

Intro to Computer Science

AI for Work and Life

First Aid / CPR

Software

Words

Numbers

Pictures

Video

Web

Data

Social media

Digital Footprints

Marketing

Management

Education

Nonprofit