An award winning designer, Joan Gaulden was President of her own firm, Joan Gaulden Interiors in Greenville, SC for over 30 years. Learning in the early nineties that to remain competitive she would have to embrace technology and make it work for her, she became an early advocate of Internet usage. In the process she conceived and developed Design Online Inc, a Resource Library for designers on the Internet. She remained CEO and Chairman of the Board of designonlineinc.com for over 8 years.

She has lectured extensively about this program and the power of the Internet throughout the country. Using this experience as a basis, she has developed several CEUs to help the design profession to embrace the enormous potential and power of the Internet as a business tool.

A Fellow of ASID, she has held many local and national positions. While ASID National Training Chair in the early 90's, she developed and presented numerous Leadership and Strategic Planning Seminars and was instrumental in designing the Leadership Modules, which later became the highly acclaimed SBSS Leadership program.

Currently Joan is acting as corporate consultant and strategic advisor on web development for several firms. She is establishing her own website, joangaulden.com and is writing a book on her experiences with .com companies. A popular speaker, she joins education-works to continue her commitment to the education of the profession.